Sustainability and Marketing:

Most of us does see marketing as the inverse or the opposite of the sustainability because
marketing does encourages individuals to consume more at the cost of the sustainability while
other see marketing as a mean through which people tends to satisfy their basic needs and improve
their quality of life without compromising the quality of life for the upcoming generations (Her
Majesty’s Government, 2005), however in the recent times there is a growing trend of sustainable
marketing which can be also termed as a green marketing. As Peter Fisk argued that the
sustainability in the marketing is one of the most emerging trend in the field of marketing (ITSMA,
2006).

According to Veiderman, “Sustainability is a vision of the future that provides us with a

road map and helps us to focus our attention on a set of values and ethical and moral principles by
which to guide our actions” (cited in Munier, 2005). It is very much clear from the definition of
the sustainability that we have to think and care about the needs of the future generations. Most of
the times the essence and real meaning of sustainability is being attributed only to the
environmental issues but in reality it is not the case, the sustainability is also related to the
economic and social issues (Obermiller et al., 2008).

The sustainability and marketing are related to each other in a number of ways. It is evident
that the lack of sustainability and damage to the environment is caused through more consumption
and manufacturing with the help of marketing (Obermiller et al., 2008). However, marketing can
play a role on the other side of coin by promoting the sustainability as marketing plays an important
role to create awareness about the recycling of the used materials, eating healthy foods, drinking
safe and healthy products, save energy by consuming less and using less energy consuming
products and help to develop the overall economic scenario (Fisk, 2001). In the era where
governments, businesses and firms are competing with each other there is a dire need for the
marketing practices to be sustainable which should be based on the win-win situation (Carrigan
and de Pelsmacker, 2009). The other role marketing has to play in achieving the state of
sustainability is to create the awareness of the issues caused by the decisive use of the marketing,
as only one in three Americans do believe that the environmental degradation and other
sustainability related issues are caused by the humans (Pew Research Center, 2009). So therefore
in order to achieve the sustainability through the marketing we have to use the concept of green
marketing as Peattie (1995) states green marketing as “the holistic management process
responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying the requirements of customers and society,
in a profitable and sustainable way”. We can say that according to the green marketing the
marketers have to encourage the sustainable consumption by using the different components of the
marketing (Peattie, 1995).
References:

Kumar, V., Rahman, Z., Kazmi, A., & Goyal, P. (2012). Evolution of Sustainability as Marketing
Strategy: Beginning of New Era. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 37, 482–489. doi:
10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.03.313

Gordon, R., Carrigan, M., & Hastings, G. (2011). A framework for sustainable marketing.
Marketing Theory, 11(2), 143–163. doi: 10.1177/1470593111403218

Scammon, D. L., & Mish, J. (2011). From Green Marketing to Marketing for Environmental
Sustainability. Oxford Handbooks Online. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199584451.003.0019