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Green Marketing: Development of Construct and Its Evolution

Vishal Kumar Laheri, Hamendra Dangi and Anupama Vohra
Asia-Pacific Journal of Management Research and Innovation 2014 10: 147
DOI: 10.1177/2319510X14536220

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Article

Green Marketing: Development Asia-Pacific Journal of Management

Research and Innovation
10(2) 147–155
of Construct and Its Evolution © 2014 Asia-Pacific
Institute of Management
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Vishal Kumar Laheri Washington DC
Hamendra Dangi DOI: 10.1177/2319510X14536220
http://apjmri.sagepub.com
Anupama Vohra

Abstract
Marketing as a discipline has evolved over a period of time where the traditional concept imparts that goods were produced to be sold
to the customers and the modern marketing states that goods are produced according to the needs and demand of the customers.
The current marketing management emphasises on satisfying the needs of the customers without any environmental degradation.
This green concept is building over the last decade because of consumer concern, government regulations, environmental lobbies’
pressure and social responsibilities of the corporates towards environment. Also green marketing is offering a new competitive
advantage to the companies who wish to target their green consumers. The current study aims to sketch out the concept of green
marketing by discussing and analysing the existing knowledge of the definitions, themes, dimensions and their components so as to
frame chronologically development of the same.

Keywords
Green marketing, eco-friendly product, green buying decision

Introduction
The concern for the environment has evolved as one of the
vital issues over the world. People are waking up to combat
this menace of environmental degradation which is directly
affecting their value of life by polluting air and water (Jain
& Kaur, 2004). Numbers of consumers are adding day by
day and the companies are continuously manufacturing the
products for satisfying their demands. So, the government,
local environmentalists and non-governmental organisa-
tions have close watch on manufacturing process, packag-
ing process and have set norms for the companies to go
‘green’. It is interesting to see that consumers in many
developed countries, such as, United States of America,
United Kingdom and Germany, have also become ecologi-
cal conscious and have started demanding eco-friendly
products (Jain & Kaur, 2004). Witnessing the demand for
eco-friendly products, many companies has turned green
and started practising green marketing strategies. In India,
due to the pressure from government and environmental
lobbies, the business firms are also going greener to combat
the pollution menace and preserve natural resources.
However, the movement continues to be more of a govern-
ment initiated one. Not much headway can be expected
unless industrial and individual consumers turn green and
starts engaging in their own eco-friendly behaviour. In
current times, the concern over the degrading state of the
environment has grown exponentially and during the con-
cluding decades of the twentieth century, environmental-
ism has transformed into an important social issue (Follows
& Jobber, 2000). As a result, consumers around the world
have responded favourably towards adoption of green
products. In developing country like India, the environ-
mentalism has just started due to the awareness of consum-
ers and pressure from the government. The companies are
bringing their products with green claims in anticipation
that consumer will adopt it as it will fulfil both personal
and environmental benefits.
With a brief discussion about the evolution of green
marketing and how marketing transformed into green
marketing over a period of time, the article moves on to a
discussion of research objective and research design used
in the study for carrying out the review work. The various
research papers relating to environmental marketing were
analysed then to find out the theme related to green market-
ing practices. The key components were found out then to
analyse which variables are mostly used in the literature.
Also, the various dimensions of green marketing were
studied in the next stage and finally a green product
develop­ment model was framed based on the analysis of
the study in the concluding part. Finally, the limitation and
future research directions of the study were suggested.

Vishal Kumar Laheri (Corresponding Author), Research Scholar, FMS, University of Delhi, Delhi. E-mail: vishal.laheri_phd@fms.edu
Hamendra Dangi, Assistant Professor, FMS, University of Delhi, Delhi. E-mail: hkdangi@fms.edu
Anupama Vohra, Associate Professor, FMS, University of Delhi, Delhi. E-mail: anupamavohra@fms.edu
Downloaded from abr.sagepub.com at Dehli University Library System on September 8, 2014
148 Vishal Kumar Laheri, Hamendra Dangi and Anupama Vohra
Evolution of Green Marketing
The term ‘Green Marketing’ came into prominence in the
late 1980s and early 1990s. The American Marketing
Association (AMA) held the first workshop on ‘Ecological
Marketing’ in Austin, Texas in 1975. The proceedings of
this workshops resulted in one of the first books on green
marketing—‘Ecological Marketing’. The first wave of
green marketing occurred in 1980s. Two tangible mile-
stones of green marketing came in the form of published
books, both of which were called ‘Green Marketing’. They
were by Ken Peattie (1999) in the United Kingdom and
Jacquelyn Ottman (1998) in the United States of America.
According to Peattie (1999), the evolution of green market-
ing has three phases. First phase was termed as ‘Ecological’
green marketing, and during this period all marketing
activities were concerned to help environment problems
and provide remedies for environmental problems. Second
phase was ‘Environmental’ green marketing and the focus
shifted on clean technology that involved designing of
innovative new products, which take care of pollution and
waste issues. Third phase was ‘Sustainable’ green market-
ing. It came into prominence in the late 1990s and early
2000s. The evolution of green marketing has changed the
concept of marketing. Now, the companies have started
promoting their products with some green claims in it.
In the near future, it is interesting to see how the consu­-
mers react to such changes in the product and processes
modification.
Research Objective
The primary objective of the study is to gain deep insights
on green marketing as a discipline using the various litera-
ture surveys from the beginning of the study. The idea here
is to investigate the various themes and dimensions related
to green marketing. Also based on the analysis and under-
standing of the literature, the secondary objective is to
present a model for green consumer buying behaviour.
Methodology
The research design to gain insights on green marketing
is chosen to be exploratory. In order to fully understand
the construct, an extensive exploratory research was
carried out. All the research papers that appeared on the
theme of green marketing were collected from different
data sources, such as, EBSCO, JSTOR, Emerald, SAGE,
Google Scholar, from 1995 onwards to 2013. A total of
50 papers were retrieved from these databases and were
screened on the basis of research focus, objectives and
themes of current research, and finally 28 papers were
found to be suitable for further inclusion. Table 1 shows
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Table 1. Database Source
Keywords Database Used Results Found
Green marketing EBSCO, SAGE, 18
Google Scholar
Green products Emerald, SAGE, 12
EBSCO
Green consumer SAGE, EBSCO, JSTOR, 13
behaviour Google Scholar
Environmental EBSCO, SAGE, 07
marketing Google Scholar
Total 50
the keywords used in these database and the number of
results found.
Green Marketing: Themes
The first definition on ‘green marketing’ was given by
American Marketing Association in 1975 in a workshop on
‘Ecological Marketing’ in Austin, Texas. ‘Green marketing
is the marketing of products that are presumed to be envi-
ronmentally safe. Thus green marketing incorporates a
broad range of activities, including product modification,
changes to the production process, packaging changes,
as well as modifying advertisements’ (Polonsky &
Jay, 1994). The theme of this definition is to promote the
products of the company in such a way that it has less or
no impact on the environment. After the beginning of green
marketing in the academic world, many research papers
and books were published. The themes of those papers are
listed in Table 2.
As can be seen from the themes that were found to exist
on ‘Green Marketing’, it was evaluated that studies related
to behavioural aspects of consumers towards green prod-
ucts are mostly covered by the researchers. Most of the
studies try to measure the environmental consciousness of
consumers, man–nature orientation (Paco & Alves, 2013).
Some study measures environmental concern with locus of
control to examine green buying behaviour (Cleveland,
Kalamas & Laroche, 2012). Some studies examined the
gender behavioural difference towards willingness to pay
more for green products (Royne, Levy & Martinez, 2011).
Once the various themes pertaining to ‘Green marketing’
were studied, they were analysed to find out the similarities
in the various themes and their components. The themes
with similar variables used in the study were grouped
together to understand it in a better way. The results of the
same are provided in Table 3.
The analysis in Table 3 is depicted in a form of a fre-
quency chart in Figure 1 to examine the number of times
the components are used in different studies.
Green Marketing 149
Table 2. Themes on Green Marketing
Authors
Melody Schuhwerk and
and Roxane Hagius (1995)
William Kilbourne (1998)
Ottman (1998)
Chialin Chen (2001)
Sanjay Jain and Gurmeet
Kaur (2004)
Ken Peattie and Andrew
Crane (2005)
Mohamed M. Mostafa (2007)
Joonas Rokka and Liisa
Uusitalo (2008)
Donald Siegel (2009)
Joanne Dono, Janine Webb
and Ben Richardson (2010)
Yu-Shan-Chen (2010)
Satu Reijonen (2011)
Marla Royne, Marian Levy
and Jennifer Martinez (2011)
Ronald Drozdenko (2011)
Johan Jansson (2011)
Mark Cleveland, Maria Kalamas
and Michel Laroche (2012)
Seongho Kang (2012)
Themes
How consumers responded to different print advertisements for green laundry detergent.
Consumers who have strong beliefs about the environment are likely to pay attention to
the environmental attributes of products. Alternatively, externally driven salience results
from a variety of factors such as advertisements, personal selling and word of mouth
Green marketing is most frequently associated with the greening of the different aspects
of traditional marketing. This generally involves production of ‘green consumers’ who are
admonished to recycle the waste through their consumption
Green products as product which is typically non-toxic, made from recycled materials
or minimally packaged. In general, green products are known as ecological products or
environmental friendly products that have less of an impact to the environment
The author presented a green product development model which addresses environmental
issues through product design and innovation and the idea is receiving significant attention
from customers, industries and the government around the world
The study makes an assessment of the extent of environmental awareness attitudes and
behaviour prevalent among Indian consumers and lists implication of the study findings
for the government and NGOs engaged in the marketing of green ideas and products
The authors have reviewed the history of ‘Green Marketing’ since the early 1990s and
to provide a critique of both the theory and practice in order to understand how the
marketing discipline may yet contribute to progress towards greater sustainability
The study investigates the influence of three cognitive and attitudinal factors on gender
differences in green purchase behaviour
Consumer environmental choice is studied by analysing the relative importance of green
packaging when compared with other relevant product attributes
Research indicates that a firm’s decision to engage in ESR (Environment Social Responsibility)
is a strategic choice and that both individual-level and organisational factors are critical to
understanding the antecedents and consequences of these decisions
The current study explores the extent to which environmental activism and environmental
behaviour are related, as well as the extent to which environmental activism and
environmental behaviour are associated with social identity
The main purpose of this article is to verify the positive relationships between green brand
equity and its three drivers—green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust
There have been three approaches to the study of green consumers: macro structuralism,
segmentalism and situationalism. The study begins with a summary of each approach and
then shows that all adopt under-lying deterministic assumption about consumer behaviour
The research examines the factors influencing the individual’s willingness to pay more for
an environmentally products
The study examined consumer perception in three areas related to the pricing
of the green products: the premium consumers are willing to pay for a green
product; the relationship between diverse category of green products; and how
tax credits affect the amount the consumers are willing to pay for a major green
purchase for the home
The study addresses consumer adoption and non-adoption of high involvement eco-
innovation (alternative fuel vehicle, AFV). The purpose is to integrate two research
streams to explore factors driving and hindering adoption. The factors are rooted in
environmental psychology research and diffusion of innovation literature
The study uses ‘Internal Environment Locus of Control’ which captures consumer’s
multifaceted attitudes pertaining to personal and ability to affect environmental outcomes
The study investigates the factors of ‘Green Brand Equity’ and explored the positive
relationship between these factors for electronics products
(Table 2 continued)
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150 Vishal Kumar Laheri, Hamendra Dangi and Anupama Vohra
(Table 2 continued)
Authors
Zainul Arifin (2012)
Surya Rashmi Rawat and Pawan
Garga (2012)
Vesna Zabkar and Maza Hosta
(2012)
Erik Olson (2013)
Arminda do Paco and
Helena Alves (2013)
Vishnu Nath, Rupesh Kumar,
Rajat Agarwal, Aditya Guatam
and Vinay Sharma (2013)
Eric Lane (2013)
Erifili Papista and Athanasios
Krystallis (2013)
Jiu Chetu and Tsai Kao (2013)
Gurpreet Singh and Neha
Singh (2013)
Harpreet Singh Chahal
and Pooja Mehta (2013)
Source: Compiled by the authors.
Table 3. Analysis of Green Marketing   Themes: Identification of Commonalities
Components
Environmental concern
(EC)/environmental
knowledge (EK)/
environmental
attitude (EA)
Asia-Pacific Journal of Management Research and Innovation, 10, 2 (2014): 147–155
Themes
The research aims were to describe the green marketing application of real estate company
based on green marketing grid and green matrix to analyse the type of competitive advantage
from implementation of environmental strategy on real estate company
The author surveyed that the customers are ready to pay premium price for green products.
Green marketing must satisfy two objectives, namely, improved environmental quality and
customer satisfaction
The study builds and explores the extended model of environmentally conscious behaviour,
where ‘concern’ predicts ‘willingness to act’ and in combination with ‘information’, then leads
to actual ‘environmental conscious behaviour’
This study demonstrates that value–action gaps are created by green attribute trade-offs,
which limit the market share and environmental impact of green products
Green or environmental marketing consists of all activities used to generate and facilitate any
exchanges intended to satisfy human needs such that the satisfaction of these needs occurs
with minimum damage
The present study focuses on the enablers to the green products adoption and identifies
such enablers from the available literature on green consumer behaviour and tries to
construct an interpretive structural model (ISM) to explain the relationship among the
identified enablers
The research suggested that both green marketers and green consumers should pay close
attention as there are likely to be increasing allegations of reverse green washing as the
market for green products and service becomes more crowded and companies try to
differentiate themselves from their competitors to sell their wares
The study aims cost–value framework in understanding the environmental consumer
buying behaviour that comprises both the situational and brand offering factors
The author probed into the influences of framing effect (FE) and green message (GM) on
green advertising effect. The result found that consumers prefer positively framed green
product advertising over negatively framed advertising
The purpose of the article is to investigate the various concepts relating to eco-
friendly products, to find out depth review of consumer behaviour and to find
out the relationship between eco-friendly products and its impact on consumer
behaviour
The author studied the demographic relationship of the respondents with organic food,
organic cosmetics and personal care products and the results found that for organic food,
the level of qualification turned out to be statistically significant whereas for organic and
personal care products age, gender and income play a significant role
Source/Year Definition
Mohamed M. Mostafa (2007), Environmental concern refers to the individual worries towards
Jain and Kaur (2004), Marla the environment which are the result of their unsustainable
Royne, Marian Levy and Jennifer consumption activities in the past
Martinez (2011), Vensa Zabkar
Environmental knowledge can be defined as
and Maza Hosta (2012), Arminda
general knowledge of facts, concepts and relationship
do Paco and Helena Alves (2013)
concerning the natural environment and its major
ecosystem
Environmental attitude refers to individual activities and
concern to minimise the environmental degradation
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Green Marketing 151
Components
Green consumer buying
behaviour
Locus of control
Green product
development model/
eco-innovation
Environmental choice
Green spinning, green
selling, green harvesting,
environpreneur marketing
and compliance marketing
Environmental activism,
environmental behaviour
and social identity
Promotion, pricing and
distribution of green goods
Green brand equity
Source: Compiled by the authors.
Figure 1. Frequency Chart for Components of Green Marketing
Source/Year Definition
William Kilbourne (1998) Green buying behaviour is an outcome of consumer’s
environmental concern that results in green buying behaviour
activities such as organic food product, organic personal care
products, eco-certified electronic products, etc.
Mark Cleveland, Maria Kalamas Locus of control is a general dispositional bias and describes
and Michel Laroche (2012) relatively stable differences those people who, at one extreme,
believe that outcomes that accrue to them are the results of
their own actions or disposition (internal locus of control)
and, at the other pole, those people who believe that events
that befall them are due to its extraneous forces and therefore
beyond their control (so-called external locus of control)
Chialin Chen (2001), Johan Green product development refers to the continuous changes
Jansson (2011) that have been made in the technology with environmental
consideration kept in mind. Examples are electric bikes, electric
car and electric bus
Joonas Rokka and Liisa Environmental choice refers to the products packaging and
Uusitalo (2008) promotional choice available which are eco-friendly
Ken Peattie and Andrew Green harvesting refers to the activities of those companies who
Crane (2005) misleadingly using their non-green products as green products
Joanne Dono, Janine Webb Environmental activism refers to the individual participation in
and Ben Richardson (2010) the events organised by the environmental groups
Pride and Ferrell (1993) The promotion and distribution of goods in such a manner that
it is less detrimental to environment
Seongho Kang (2012) Green brand equity of a company is something which is an
outcome of green trust, green satisfaction, green affect and
green loyalty
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152 Vishal Kumar Laheri, Hamendra Dangi and Anupama Vohra

From Figure 1, it is clear that ‘Environmental Concern’/ Dimensions of Green Marketing

‘Environmental Knowledge’/‘Environmental Attitude’ are the
major components to measure the behaviour of consumers
towards environmental products. This signifies that most of
the authors have focused on consumer concern for environ-
ment as major instrument for their study. Some authors have
used the components such as product and promotion in green
marketing. They have identified that consumers are ready to
buy the green products if it has green feature which will not
degrade the environment. Also the companies are using green
claims in their products for promotional activities. Green
brand equity is also gaining momentum nowadays.
Researchers have approached ‘Green Marketing’ from
different perspectives, resulting in similar and dissimilar
dimensions of the same. It makes green marketing a multi-
dimensional construct. As a part of the analysis to study
the theoretical foundations on green marketing, a sketch of
the researchers who have studied the multidimensional
approach on green marketing was drawn. Data were
arranged year-wise so as to chronologically study the
various developments of the proposed dimensions frame-
work. The analysis of the same is given in Table 4.

Table 4. Dimensions of Green Marketing

Year Source Dimensions Explanation of Dimensions

1995 Melody Schuhwerk 1. Green appeal The author used green laundry detergent as product. The green
and Roxane Hagius advertisements appeal emphasis ‘You can save the planet while doing laundry’.
2. Non-green/Financial ‘You can save some money while doing laundry’. In both cases, the
appeal advertisements. authors measured dimension of appeal influence the consumers to buy
the green laundry detergents.
1998 William Kilbourne 1. Economic Green marketing efforts to achieve sustainability come in conflict
with the economic dimension when they entail market expansion
in some areas without offsetting decrease in other areas.
2. Political Green marketing efforts can be and are thwarted by the conflicts of
interest between different fractions. Rational judgement is required
to resolve such contradiction which require political framework.
Technological advancement in green marketing refers to the changing
3. Technological in the production process in such a way which is
less detrimental to the environment and must make effective
utilisation of inputs.
2005 Ken Peattie and 1.  Sales Orientation In green marketing, firms use environmental factors as promotional
Andrew Crane elements to increase the sales.
2. Compartmentalism In respect to green marketing, many firms have sought to address
consumers’ need, but their interest in the environment has been
limited to the marketing department. This has prevented firms
from developing broad, holistic approach to green marketing.
3.  Finance Orientation With the environment, companies have been enthusiastic about green
marketing when it has involved short term cost savings like packaging
reduction or energy savings but at the same time requires huge initial
investments to develop more sustainable product and processes.
Green marketing focused on avoiding any significant change, and
4. Conservatism focused instead of marginal, incremental improvements to existing
products and processes.
2011 Satu Reijonen 1.  Cultural Determinism Cultural determinism refers to a logic according to which
institutionalised cultural or social frames, logics or value system
determine the greenness of consumption of a single agent.
2. Psycho-socio- In this, the explanation for greenness is found demographic within
demographic the consumer him or herself. However, rather than claiming that it
Determinism is the free will of a consumer to choose to buy green, an individual
pre-existing personal characteristics are argued to explain his or her
consumption patterns.
3. Calculative In many literatures, the greenness of a consumer seen as dependent
Determinism on the calculations he/she put forward based on the situation. The
calculative quality of consumer who weigh the pros and cons of
products and purchasing situation.
Source: Compiled by the authors.

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Green Marketing 153
From Table 4, it looks like the ‘Green Marketing’ as
a discipline has been used in the literature from many
dimensions. One way of looking to it is from market envi-
ronment perspective. When we talk about the ‘economic’
dimension, there are various views regarding achieving the
sustainability with economy. Again, ‘political’ dimensions
talk about regulatory framework and decisional process
required for a company to turn green. Also, ‘technological’
dimensions suggest that for a company to turn green, a
radical change in the technology and production process
is required. Process innovation is required right from the
procurement of raw materials to manufacturing process to
promotion and selling activities to distribution and disposal
of products. This requires huge investments for a company.
Another dimension of green marketing is the effect of
promotional activities on consumers. The study tested
which appeal (financial or ecological) motivates the con-
sumers to buy green products. Literature suggested that
green marketing is also looked from ‘socio-cultural’
dimensions as well.
Once the various dimensions on green marketing were
explored, the study examined the green consumer buying
behaviour in the next section. Based on the analysis of the
various themes and dimensions, a green consumer buying
behaviour model is presented.
Green Consumer Buying Behaviour
Green marketing is done by the marketers to communicate
their green products to the consumers. The main objective
of the green marketing is to turn the consumers into green
consumers. For a marketer it is important to understand
the behaviour of the consumers towards green products.
A green consumer is the one who avoids products that
are likely to endanger the health of the consumer or others;
cause significant damage to the environment during manu-
facture, use or disposal; consume a disproportionate
amount of energy; cause unnecessary waste; use material
Figure 2. Green Consumer Buying Behaviour Model
Source: Authors.
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derived from threatened species or environments; involve
unnecessary use of, or cruelty to animals; and adversely
affect other countries (Elkington, 1994). The literature
suggested that many authors such as Mostafa (2006), Jain
and Kaur (2004), Royne, Levy and Martinez (2011),
Zabkar and Hosta (2012) and Paco and Alves (2013) have
used environemntal knowledge, environmental attitude
and environmental concern to measure the buying behav-
iour of consumers towards green products. Based on the
understanding of the previous studies discussed in this
article, a green consumer buying behaviour model is
presented in Figure 2.
The model presented in Figure 2 shows the buying
behaviour of consumers towards green products. The
basic theme of the model is to present a framework of how
the consumer’s environmental awareness is developed
that results in green buying behaviour. A consumer ‘level
of education’ and its ‘environmental concern’ and ‘cul-
tural values’ together will lead to ‘environmental aware-
ness’. Of the three factors, environmental concern is more
powerful to make consumers aware of environmental
problems which are a result of their unsustainable con-
sumption behaviour. A higher level of education also plays
an important role in making consumer more concerned
towards the environment, but at the same time it does not
mean that uneducated consumers are not concerned for the
environment. The cultural values that we should conserve
trees, should not waste water and electricity, should not
pollute the environment, etc. also play an important role in
shaping environmental awareness of consumer. Accord­-
ing to this model, an environmentally aware consumer
will seek to buy green products based on the attributes it
is supplying. The primary attributes that a consumer
looks in a green product is its environmental friendliness.
A consumer will feel satisfy that by the purchase of
green product, the environment is not degrading anymore.
Also at the same time, green products must fulfil the
basic product attributes requirements. For example, if a
154 Vishal Kumar Laheri, Hamendra Dangi and Anupama Vohra
consumer buys a CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp)
against old incandescent lamps, its environmental benefit
is to consume less power and at the same time emitting
proper light is its basic product attribute. So a green
product should provide same attribute as any other con-
ventional product. Based on the analysis of the literature,
the study identified four ‘enablers’ which influence the
buying decision of consumer to purchase green products.
These are ‘Tax Benefits’, ‘Eco-certification’, ‘Reference
Group’ and ‘Green Advertisements’.
It has been seen that the green products are priced higher
than conventional products, for example, price of organic
food products and price of conventional farm food prod-
ucts. The higher prices act as a barrier to switch to green
products. As such, if any tax benefits or incentives are
given by the government on excess money paid for the pur-
chase of green products over traditional non-green prod-
ucts will act as an influencer to switch to the green products.
Once the customers are influenced to buy the green prod-
ucts, there can be some confusion that arises in the minds
such as whether the product is eco-friendly or not and if it
is another marketing gimmicks by the companies? The
consumers are still in dual minds whether to purchase the
green product or not? Eco-certification given by the gov-
ernment ensures that the product covers the green labels.
Thus, the originality of the products to be green is ensured
by the eco-certification. Again the reference groups such as
family, friend, colleagues, etc. also play an important role
in purchase decisions. The companies are also now-a-days
promoting their products as eco-friendly. A print advertise-
ment in Aquafina water bottle by PepsiCo that it returns the
same amount of water to nature that it takes for the manu-
facturing of its soft drinks shows that the company is eco-
conscious. Nokia advertises that its mobile handsets are
made up of recycled materials is another example.
Panasonic ‘Eco-navi’ washing machines claims that it con-
sumes less power and water than its competitors are some
examples of eco-friendly products promotion by the com-
panies. So such advertisements drive the consumers to buy
the green products.
Conclusion
The current study highlighted the emergence of ‘Green
Marketing’ since AMA described it for the first time in
1975. The various dimensions constituting behavioural
aspects of consumer towards green products, effects of
environmental concern and knowledge on environmental
attitude by various authors are studied then. Some paper
covers the price and promotion effects on consumer
buying behaviour while other investigates the adoption
behaviour of consumers towards green products over
Asia-Pacific Journal of Management Research and Innovation, 10, 2 (2014): 147–155
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traditional non-green products. So much research papers
starting from 1995 to 2013 can be seen from this study
and it suggests that all the stakeholders, that is, marketers,
consumers and government are concerned for the environ-
ment. The results of the current study suggest that ‘Environ­-
mental Concern’ as a component is taken maxi­ mum
number of times, which implies that researchers investi-
gated whether the concern for the environmental factors is
supportive to measure the behavioural of consumers
towards green products. The result found positive and it
concludes that people are concerned for the environment
and are ready to change their behaviour to minimise the
effect on the environment.
When we talk about the Indian consumer perception
towards green products, many feel ambivalence towards its
adoption (Jain & Kaur, 2004). This may be because of low
awareness of consumers towards green products. The
present study comes with a model depicted in Figure 2
which talks about the awareness level of consumers, which
results in green buying decision. The model suggested that
awareness depends upon the level of education, its cultural
values and their concern for the environment. The study
also identified certain enablers which influence their actual
buying decisions towards green products. The model will
be helpful for the marketers to be able to understand the
buying behaviour of consumer towards green products.
The identified enablers can act as key elements for the
marketers while approaching their green consumers.
The current study aims to undertake the various dimen-
sions on green marketing from the beginning. The article
covers various themes and its components by different
authors over the period of time. The result of the study was
concluded on selective papers and some other important
papers may have been missed out during analysis. The
article investigates that the consumer are ambivalent
towards the purchase of green products. The further study
can be done to analyse the pro-environmental behaviour
of consumers and examines the barriers and drivers to
adoption of green products.
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