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INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT
ISSN:2350-0891 -ONLINE ISSN:2350-0883 -PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR:0.450
VOLUME 2, ISSUE 4, APRIL 2015
GREEN MARKETING – A REVIEW
G. SIVAKUMAR
Final year- B.Com, PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore
ABSTRACT
Green marketing is marketing of the products which are safe for the environment. In the era of
globalisation the biggest challenge for the organisations is to keep the fold of consumers and
customers and the safety of natural environment. Environment pollution is the biggest problem in
today‟s business environment and its safety is the biggest need of the time. Green marketing has
emerged as a very important concept in India as in the other developing and developed countries.
Green marketing is a phenomenon which is of much importance in the modern markets. Human
wants are unlimited and the resources which we have are limited so it is important that the marketers
use the resources effectively without wastage to achieve the goals of the organisation. Green
marketing is a phenomenon, which has developed in the modern market. The Paper aims at finding
out what actually Green Marketing is all about and how can a business firm be more competitive by
using green marketing strategies to gain a competitive edge over others. Now a day‟s both the
consumers and marketers are more interested in switching to the green products and services. In the
short term shift to the “green” may be expensive but in the long run it will prove to be advantageous,
cost wise too. Many opportunities are available to the companies with the development of the green
marketing like they can co-brand their products into separate lines, lauding the green-friendliness of
some and ignoring of others. So green marketing is inevitable.
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Keywords: Green Marketing, Green Products, Environmentally safe
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INTRODUCTION
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Green marketing is marketing of the products which are safe for the environment. Green marketing is
a marketing concept where the products and services are produced, marketed, consumed and
disposed in such a manner that is less detrimental to the environment with growing awareness about
the implications of global warming, non-biodegradable solid waste, harmful impact of pollutants etc.
Pride and Ferrell (1993) Green marketing, also alternatively known as environmental marketing and
sustainable marketing, refers to an organisation‟s efforts at designing, promoting, pricing and
distributing products that will not harm environment. Elkington (1994: 93) defines green consumer as
one who avoids products that are likely to endanger the health of the consumer or others; cause
significant damage to the environment during manufacture, use or disposal; consume a
disproportionate amount of energy; cause unnecessary waste; use materials derived from threatened
species or environment; involve unnecessary use of, or cruelty to animals; adversely affect other
countries.
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Green Marketing refers to the process of selling products and/or services based on their
environmental benefits. Such a product or service may be environmentally friendly in it or produced
and/or packaged in a environmentally friendly way.
The basic assumption of green marketing is that potential consumers will view a product or service‟s
“Greenness” as a benefit and base their buying decision accordingly
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INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT
ISSN:2350-0891 -ONLINE ISSN:2350-0883 -PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR:0.450
VOLUME 2, ISSUE 4, APRIL 2015
Characteristics of Green Marketing
1. It is the process of selling product and services based on their environmental benefits.
2. It is concerned with environmentally friendly/safe.
3. It is intended to satisfy consumer needs and wants.
4. It produces products having minimal detrimental input on the environment.
5. It is concerned with quality, performance, affordable pricing and convenience of product
and services.
6. It promotes innovation and competitiveness.
Table No.1 Countries ranked according to their response level on Green Marketing
RANK
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5
6
7
COUNTRIES
INDIA
UK
US
THAILAND
AUSTRALIA
CANADA
CHINA
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Source - www.google.com
MARKETING MIX OF GREEN MARKETING
As there are 4Ps in marketing product, price, place and promotion similarly there are 4Ps in green
marketing too, but different from the Ps of the marketing. The 4Ps of green marketing are must be
addressed in the innovative ways. These are as following:
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(A)PRODUCT The consumers who prefer environment friendly products, the products are produced
by the marketers according to their needs. The organisations exploit green market by developing
environmentally responsible products to have less impact than the competitors. Products are produced
by recycling the materials and also from the used goods. The products with efficiency save the
environment from harmful effects and also save resources such as water, energy and money. In
product management the marketers provide the product designers the market styles and customers
preferences for the green product attributes such as local sourcing, organic, green chemicals, etc.
Among the shoes companies Nike is the first to enter in green marketing. Air Jordan shoes are
marketed by it as environment-friendly shoes because they used less of harmful glue adhesive. Nike
has reduced wastage and used eco-friendly products by designing Air Jordan Shoes. For example,
Sony has set up the Sony Group Environmental Vision; the objective of this group is to a “Zero
Environmental Footprint” which means to reduce the environmental footprint of their activities and of
each and every Sony product throughout its life cycle to zero. They will be able to achieve this by
2050.
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(B)PRICE People, profit and planet are taken into consideration in such a way that they take care of
the health of the employees and productivity in green pricing. By modifying the appearance,
functioning and through customization the value can be added to it. Wall Mall introduced its
recyclable cloth shopping bag. IKEA encouraged people to shop using “Big Blue Bag” by charging
from the consumers who use plastic bags.
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INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT
ISSN:2350-0891 -ONLINE ISSN:2350-0883 -PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR:0.450
VOLUME 2, ISSUE 4, APRIL 2015
(C)PLACE Green place is about the management of the transportation and to reduce its errors. It tries
to reduce the carbon footprint. The local productions should be encouraged. For example the mango
juice which is imported can be licensed to the local production rather than marketing it as imported
product. Because this will help to reduce down the cost of transportation from far way and also the
carbon emissions from the different means of transport.
(D)PROMOTION Green promotion covers keeping in mind profit, people and planet the tools of
promotion such as advertising, marketing materials, web sites, videos, white papers, videos and
presentations. Green marketing has been introduced by the Indian Tobacco Company by introducing
environmentally-friendly papers and boards. These papers and boards are free of elemental chlorine.
Toyota is also introducing green marketing through electric hybrid technology into many of its
product lines. It has also made huge investment in R&D in hydrogen car and promoted itself as first
eco-friendly Car Company.
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REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The first wave of Green Marketing occurred in the 1980s. Two tangible milestones for wave 1 of
green marketing came in the form of published books, both of which were called Green Marketing.
They were by Ken Peattie (1992) in the United Kingdom and by Jacquelyn Ottoman.
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The American Marketing Association (AMA) held the first workshop on “Ecological Marketing” in
1975. The proceedings of this workshop resulted in one of the first books on green marketing entitled
“EcologicalMarketing”.Greenmarketing is defined as “Green or Environmental Marketing consists of
all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or
wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental impact on
the natural environment.”
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The term green marketing refers to the strategies to promote products by employing environmental
claims either about their attributes or about the systems, policies and processes of the firms that
manufacture or sell them(A. Prakash, 2002). Clearly, green marketing is part and parcel of the overall
corporate strategy (Menon and Menon, 1997). Along with manipulating the traditional marketing mix
(product, price, place and promotion), it requires an understanding of public policy processes. Green
marketing also ties closely with issues of industrial ecology and environmental sustainability such as
extended producers „liability, life-cycle analysis, material use and resource flows, and eco-efficiency
(A. Prakash, 2002)
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GREEN CODE
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G: Generalizes with care. Consumer behavior will not necessarily be consistent across different
product types, and particular market segments may respond to certain issues on the green agenda but
not others.
R: Remembers, the validity of a piece of market research is not related to the degree to which it
supports your preferred option.
E: Explores the context from which market research data comes. Be clear on the nature of the sample
used, the questions asked, the way in which responses were recorded and the time and place from
which the responses come.
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INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT
ISSN:2350-0891 -ONLINE ISSN:2350-0883 -PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR:0.450
VOLUME 2, ISSUE 4, APRIL 2015
E: Ensures that where market research is crossing international borderlines, that the terminology and
interpretation remains consistent. Terms like „environment‟, „green‟ and‟ conservation‟ do not always
translate precisely between languages.
N: Neutrality is important. Ensure that when you pose questions to consumers, that they can make
any response without being made to feel guilty or uncomfortable, and ensure that your own
preconceptions about the green agenda (such as an assumption that green products will cost extra) are
not encoded within the questions.
GOLDEN RULES OF GREEN MARKETING
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1. Know you're customer: Make sure that the consumer is aware of and concerned about the issues
that your product attempts to address, (Whirlpool learned the hard way that consumers wouldn't pay a
premium for a CFC-free refrigerator because consumers dint know what CFCs
2. Educating your customers: isn't just a matter of letting people know you're doing whatever you're
doing to protect the environment, but also a matter of letting them know why it matters. Otherwise,
for a significant portion of your target market, it's a case of "So what?" and your green marketing
campaign goes nowhere.
3.Being genuine & transparent: means that a) you are actually doing what you claim to be doing in
your green marketing campaign and b) the rest of your business policies are consistent with whatever
you are doing that's environmentally friendly. Both these conditions have to be met for your business
to establish the kind of environmental credentials that will allow a green marketing campaign to
succeed.
4. Reassure the buyer: Consumers must be made to believe that the product performs the job it's
supposed to do-they won't forego product quality in the name of the environment.
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AVOIDING GREEN MYOPIA
The green products should be produced keeping in mind the needs of the consumers so that the
consumers buy the product. These products should attract and motivate the consumers to switch from
other brands to the green products. The product which is produced is completely green in all aspects
but does not meet the demands of the consumer will be of no use because it will lead to green myopia.
The prices of these products should be reasonable because they will lose the acceptance of consumer
if they are charged very high.
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CONCLUSION
Green marketing is marketing of the products which are safe for the environment. Now this is the
right time to accept Green Marketing globally. There will be drastic change in the country. Green
marketing is important to save the world from pollution. With the threat of global warming it is the
need of the time to accept this new concept of green marketing. So, the marketers should convince
and also involve the consumers in marketing the green products. The consumers, industrial buyers and
suppliers need to reduce the negative effect on the environment. Green marketing is of more
importance and will play a vital role in the development of the country like India.
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REFERENCES
 Unruh, G. And Ettenson, R. (2010, June). Growing Green; Three smart paths to developing
sustainable products. Harvard Business Review. Vol. 5(6). Boston.
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INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT
ISSN:2350-0891 -ONLINE ISSN:2350-0883 -PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR:0.450
VOLUME 2, ISSUE 4, APRIL 2015
 Mishra et.al (2010) Green Marketing in India: Emerging Opportunities and Challenges
Journal of Engineering, Science and Management Education/Vol. 3, 9-14
 Polonsky.M, (1994), ―An introduction to green marketing‖ , Electronic Green Journal vol. 1,
No. 2.
 Menon A, Menon A. 1997. Enviropreneurial Marketing Strategy: The Emergence of
Corporate Environmentalism as market strategy. Journal of Marketing 61: 51–67.
 Ottman, Jacquelyn. 1993. Green Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities for the New
Marketing Age. Lincolnwood, Illinois: NTC Business Books
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 Prakash A. 2000a. Greening the Firm: The Politics of Corporate Environmentalism.
Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
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 Prakash A. 2000b. Responsible Care: An Assessment. Business and Society 39: 183–209.
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 Peattie K. 1995. Environmental Marketing Management. Pitman: London.
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 Peattie K. 1999. Rethinking marketing. In Greener Marketing 2nd edn, Charter M,
PolonskyMJ (eds). Sheffield; 57–70.
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 Peattie, K.: Towards Sustainability (2001): The Third Age of Green Marketing,The
Marketing Review, 2001/2, pp. 129-146.
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WEBSITES:
 www.google.com
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_marketing
 www.greenmarketing.net/stratergic.html
 www.greenpeace.org/international
 http://www.greenmarketing.net/stratergic.html
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