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How are consumer behavior and marketing strategy researchers incorporating

the SDGs? A review and opportunities for future research

Article  in  Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ) · February 2022

DOI: 10.1177/14413582221079431

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research-article2022
ANZ0010.1177/14413582221079431Australasian Marketing JournalVoola et al.

Special Issue: Re-imagining Marketing Scholarship in the era of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Australasian Marketing Journal

How are consumer behavior and 1­–12

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incorporating the SDGs? A review and DOI: 10.1177/14413582221079431

https://doi.org/10.1177/14413582221079431
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opportunities for future research

Ranjit Voola1, Chinmoy Bandyopadhyay2, Fara Azmat3,

Subhasis Ray2,4 and Lipsa Nayak2

Abstract
Increasing environmental challenges together with irresponsible consumption and production practices call for marketing research focused on
sustainability. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework for marketers to operationalize sustainability
and to build awareness and shape consumers’ as well as businesses’ views about responsible consumerism and sustainability. As the SDG
framework continues to influence marketing literature and practice, it is important to take stock of how consumer and marketing strategy
scholars have engaged with the SDGs since their announcement in 2015. To this end, we undertake a systematic literature review of 41
papers published in premier marketing journals that explicitly engage with the SDGs. The review identifies several gaps in the marketing
literature that provide a basis for identifying future research opportunities. We argue that engaging with these research opportunities
provides a transformational opportunity for marketing scholars to positively impact society.

Keywords
UN sustainable development goals, consumer behavior, marketing strategy, systematic literature review

Date received: 17 August 2021; accepted: 24 January 2022

Introduction
Contemporary marketing literature finds itself amidst a perfect storm.
The pandemic, technological disruptions, climate change, irrespon-
sible consumption, and the evolving expectations of businesses in
society have catalyzed marketing scholars to reflect on the depth of
engagement with sustainability (e.g. Bolton, 2021; Pomering, 2017).
Furthermore, marketing scholars continue to call for research that
is relevant to society (e.g. Conduit et al., 2021; Kohli & Haenlein,
2021; Lindgreen et al., 2021). Echoing other marketing academics,
we argue that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) provide a framework that marketing academics can use to
frame their sustainability responses as well as address critiques of
the relevance of marketing literature to practice and policy (e.g. de
Ruyter et al., 2022; Mende & Scott, 2021; Voola et al., 2022).
As the SDGs were launched in 2015, it is an opportune time to
understand whether and how marketing academics have engaged
with the SDGs. Although there have been several papers discuss-
ing marketing and the SDGs in specific contexts, two studies have
attempted to progress our understanding of how marketing schol-
ars have engaged with the SDGs, via literature reviews. Anwar and
El-Bassiouny (2020) provide a broad-based review of literature
engaging with marketing and the SDGs, whilst Voola et al. (2022)
have conducted a systemic literature review (SLR) in the specific
context of how B2B marketing scholars have interacted with the
SDGs. However, Anwar and El-Bassiouny (2020) do not undertake a
systematic review of the literature, thereby potentially missing out on
the advantages of a SLR (see Paul et al., 2021) to inform marketing
literature in the context of SDGs. Whilst Voola et al. (2022) under-
take a SLR, they do so in the specific context of the SDGs and
B2B marketing literature, thereby limiting the scope of the SLR to
a subset of marketing. The lack of a broader understanding of the
engagement of marketing literature with the SDGs has motivated us
to conduct a SLR to identify important gaps in the marketing litera-
ture. Furthermore, although there are several reviews in the broader
sustainability scholarship (e.g. Kumar et al., 2021), by not connect-
ing specifically to the SDGs, marketing academics run the risk of
overlooking a framework that allows them to position their work as
being relevant and impactful to society (Voola et al., 2022). We con-
tribute to the marketing literature by building on Voola et al.’s (2022)
review which focused specifically on B2B marketing literature and
the SDGs, to conduct a SLR that examines broader marketing lit-
erature.1 Specifically, we critically analyze and summarize extant
knowledge relating to how the broader marketing literature engaged
with SDGs from 2015 to 2021. Second, we identify various gaps at
the intersection between marketing and the SDGs, and finally, we
1
The University of Sydney Business School, NSW, Australia
2
XIM University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
3
Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
4
Maynooth University, Ireland
Corresponding author:
Ranjit Voola, The University of Sydney Business School, H70 Camperdown,
Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Email: ranjit.voola@sydney.edu.au
2 Australasian Marketing Journal 00(0)
Records identified through
Identification
database searching (title,
abstract, and keywords)
(n =5444)
Screening
Records retained after screening
(n = 43)
Full-text articles
Eligibility
assessed for eligibility
(n = 43)
Studies included in the
Included
review
(n = 41)
Figure 1.  PRISMA flowchart.
identify future research directions to move the field of SDGs in mar-
keting literature forward. To this end, our research is guided by three
research questions:
(RQ1) How have the SDGs been addressed in marketing scholar-
ship from 2015 to 2021?
(RQ2) What are the thematic clusters in the intellectual structure
of marketing and SDG research?
(RQ3) What are the extant research gaps at the intersection of
marketing and SDG research? What are the future research direc-
tions to move the field forward?
This paper is structured as follows. We first present the methodol-
ogy of our SLR, followed by a descriptive analysis and its findings.
We next discuss our findings that are structured around the three
research questions. This allows us to synthesize extant knowledge
relating to what we know about the SDGs-marketing interaction, the
gaps in the literature and potential research opportunities. We con-
clude by discussing theoretical and managerial implications.
Review methodology
In line with the recommendations of Tranfield et al. (2003) and
Palmatier et al. (2018), we adopted a systematic, transparent, and
reproducible literature review approach to present the current state
of the field and highlight future research opportunities. This system-
atic approach adequately addresses our review questions by (i) pro-
viding a comprehensive account of the research on marketing-SDG
Records identified through
journal website searching
(full text)
(n = 240)
Records excluded (n = 5641)
Duplicate articles
Non-ABDC (A and A*)
ranked articles
Non-marketing articles
Excluded for: not matching
with the review objectives
(title and abstract review:
did not include both marketing
and UN SDG related aspects)
2 articles were excluded that
made only implicit or
peripheral references to SDGs
or marketing issues (full-text
review)
engagement published between 2015 and 2021 and (ii) highlighting
the knowledge gaps and identifying future research opportunities.
We followed a four-stage process in line with Moher et al.’s (2009)
PRISMA protocol (see Figure 2) as discussed below. Moreover, as
recommended by Paul et al. (2021), we provide justification for our
review methodology related decisions.
Literature search strategy
Given our focus on the interface between marketing scholarship and
SDGs, we searched the literature through a) academic databases (titles
and abstracts) and b) ABDC listed A and A*marketing journals (full
text) websites to locate scholarly articles that explicitly mentioned at
least one of the 17 SDGs. The marketing journals were identified using
their Field of Research Codes (FOR). We conducted our search from
2015 onward—as SDGs were formulated and announced in 2015—
until March 2021 (See Figure 1). We describe the process below.
First, we conducted a comprehensive search of business man-
agement literature databases. Following other SDG-related studies
(e.g. García-Feijoo et al., 2020; Gusmão Caiado et al., 2018) and
after rounds of discussions with the author team, we formulated the
literature search string intended to capture marketing studies that
specifically contained various SDG related terminologies: “SDG”
OR “sustainable development goal” OR “UN SDG” OR “United
Nations SDG” OR “UN sustainable development goal” OR “United
Nations sustainable development goal” OR “post-2015 agenda” OR
“2030 agenda.” Using the search string, we searched the Taylor and
Francis, Elsevier (ScienceDirect), Emerald, ProQuest, SAGE, and
EBSCOhost, databases. This search strategy enabled us to focus
Voola et al. 3
30
25
20
15
10
5 4
3
0
2017 2018
Number of publications
Figure 2.  Marketing and SDG related publications over the years.
on marketing studies that examined SDGs explicitly, rather than on
broader sustainable marketing topics or CSR-related research. This
search resulted in 5,444 articles.
Similar to recent reviews premier marketing journals (e.g.
Grossmann et al., 2019; Lim et al., 2021), we only considered ABDC
A and A-star ranked marketing journal articles (based on FOR codes)
to maintain homogeneity in quality and impact. We triangulated the
database search results by conducting a journal-level search using
the same search string that yielded 240 articles. Searches in data-
bases and journal websites returned 5,684 records (See Figure 1).
Screening
Following the keyword search, we scanned the titles and abstracts
of the identified articles and adopted four inclusion-exclusion crite-
ria. First, we omitted articles that did not cover marketing and SDG-
related aspects. We achieved this by carefully tracking instances
where the titles or the abstracts explicitly mentioned various termi-
nologies relating to both SDG and marketing. Second, as mentioned
earlier, we only considered publications included in the ABDC (A
and A*) marketing journals list. Third, to maintain consistency in
quality and impact of the selected studies, we restricted our focus
to peer-reviewed English-language theoretical and empirical journal
articles (i.e. we did not include books, book chapters, editorial mate-
rials, conference proceedings, unpublished working papers, doctoral
dissertations, and newspaper/magazine articles). Lastly, duplicate
articles were excluded from our review. As a result, 43 articles met
our screening criteria.
Eligibility
To be considered relevant, we included papers that focused on
both marketing and SDG-related aspects and analyzed their link-
ages. To enable full-text evaluation, articles were organized into an
Excel spreadsheet (e.g. research contexts, citations, methods, results,
26
4 4
2019 2020 2021
themes). After independent full-text evaluation and rounds of dis-
cussions, we excluded two articles that briefly mentioned SDGs but
did not adequately report the linkages between marketing and SDG-
related aspects/activities in the findings or the discussion section.
Inclusion
As illustrated in Figure 1, after a rigorous and systematic searching,
screening, and evaluation process, a total of 41 articles were consid-
ered relevant for our review.
How has marketing scholarship engaged
with the SDGs?
Following Paul and Criado’s (2020)  domain-based structured
review protocol, we carefully summarized and analyzed 41 articles.
Specifically, our findings highlight the journals the articles were pub-
lished in, the year of publication, methods used, context, sectors, and
the relationship between marketing and SDG-related aspects.
Publication trends
Figure 2 illustrates the annual distribution of publications. The rate of
publications has increased since 2020, indicating clear and growing
academic interest in this nascent research area.
Figure 3 highlights the 13 marketing journals that the articles
were published in. The articles have been cited 247 times (as of
March 2021). Marketing Intelligence & Planning has published the
greatest number of articles (11), followed by Journal of Business
Research (10). However, Figure 3 suggests that the articles pub-
lished in Journal of Business Research (JBR) have garnered the most
attention (64 citations), followed by Health Promotion International
(40 citations), contributing 42% of the total number of citations.
Not surprisingly, as JBR is the highest-cited journal, we had a high
number of articles from this journal in our sample. However, what
4 Australasian Marketing Journal 00(0)

70
64
60

50

40 40
28
30
26 25 17
2 4 22 13
20 0
6 2 10
10 4 1 4 11
1 1 2 1
1 2
0 01

No. of publications Number of citations

Figure 3.  Distribution of publications across journals along with their citations.

Table 1.  Methods used in the selected articles.

Methods Number of articles Number of articles

(Firm level marketing) (Consumer level marketing)

Qualitative 8 9
Quantitative 7 8
Mixed 3 2
Conceptual/literature review 2 2

is interesting is that the majority of the JBR articles are recent (pub-
lished in 2020 or 2021), indicating a significant number of citations
in a short timeframe. This suggests that JBR is the most influential
journal in this space and is contributing in a significant way to mov-
ing this research area forward.
Methods employed
Our analysis suggests that researchers primarily relied on survey-based
deductive research methods (see Table 1). Other studies focused on
building a more in-depth contextual understanding, employing case
or interview-based inductive methods. The use of mixed methods was
not very evident. However, studies that employed mixed approaches
(e.g. Bell et al., 2021; Claro & Esteves, 2021) represent emerging
efforts to build more robust theories specific to this emerging domain.
Industries/sectors
The reviewed articles feature 13 sectors (see Figure 4), ranging from
fashion to fisheries. Most of the articles (15 or 37%) belong to basic
sectors such as food, fashion, health, education, financial, and infor-
mation technology, indicating there is a dearth of studies relating to
niche sectors such as renewable energy, smart and sustainable city
building, and prevention of human trafficking. Therefore, research-
ers might consider expanding the focus to include such sectors/
industries. A few articles (mostly conceptual/literature reviews) are
classified as “NA” in Figure 4 as they did not explicitly mention any
specific sectors or industries.
Geographical locations
As depicted in Figure 5, the studies are distributed over five con-
tinents. However, most of the studies are conducted in economi-
cally advanced countries, whereas only two articles (5%) focused
on emerging/developing continents like Africa. Most of the studies
(34%) only used American and European samples. Therefore, the
findings from these studies may not translate effectively to Asian or
African business contexts.
Marketing literature and the SDGs
We extend the prior descriptive understanding of how market-
ing scholars have addressed the SDGs (research question 1) and
adopt a nuanced approach to understand the intellectual structure
Voola et al. 5

10
9
9
8
7
6
5
5
4
3 3
3
2 2 2 2
2
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1
0

Firm-level marketing Consumer-level marketing

Figure 4.  Industries/sectors covered in the studies across the two streams of marketing literature.

10
9
9
8
8

5
4
4
3 3 3 3
3
2 2
2
1 1 1 1
1
0
0
Europe South America Africa Asia Cross-continent Not mentioned Oceania

Firm level marketing Consumer level marketing

Figure 5.  Study locations of the selected studies.

of marketing and SDG research (research question 2). Following
a close reading of the 41 articles, we inductively identified two
emerging categories: (a) firm-level marketing and (b) consumer-
level marketing. This involved extracting all the relevant infor-
mation from the articles into a spreadsheet. We re-read relevant
segments (particularly the purpose, research questions, findings,
and discussion) of the articles from the spreadsheet to understand
the core topic/theme of each article. Then, using a deductive
approach, we engaged with the scholarship to examine if these
two categories, derived inductively, had support from the litera-
ture. We found that these categories are broadly consistent with
how scholars have traditionally categorized marketing scholar-
ship at the macro level (Sheth, 2021). In sum, this categorization
allowed us to provide nuanced insights for consumer-based and
firm-focused marketing scholarship. Firm-level marketing stud-
ies focused primarily on firm-level strategies such as identifying
market opportunities, designing products, networking/partner-
ing, sustainability-oriented marketing strategies, and trade-offs.
6 Australasian Marketing Journal 00(0)
Figure 6.  Interface Between Marketing and SDG related aspects. (Numbers next to the box denote the number of articles and the size of the box denotes
the strength of engagement with the SDGs.)
Consumer-level marketing articles, on the other hand, concen-
trated on consumer behavior.
The Sankey diagram (Figure 6) depicts the level of engagement
between marketing and the SDGs. We mapped the frequencies of
engagement of each SDG-related topic with consumer-level and firm-
level marketing topics using the mind-mapping tool SimpleMind
(https://simplemind.eu/). In the diagram, connections with thicker
lines and bigger icons depict high-frequency values and higher lev-
els of engagement between SDGs and marketing-related aspects.
For example, SDG-12 (Responsible Consumption and Production)
has a bigger icon and thicker links with both consumer-level and
firm-level marketing studies, suggesting that marketing scholars
have engaged in a significant way with SDG-12 (17 consumer-level
and 6 firm-level studies). On the contrary, SDG-1 (No Poverty) has
only a few thin connections with both strands of literature, indi-
cating lower engagement. The studies mostly focused on SDGs-3
(Good Health and Well-Being), SDG-8 (Decent Work and Economic
Growth), SDG-9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), SDG-12
(Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG-13 (Climate
Action). Such concentration highlights the need to expand the focus
to include other key SDGs.
Further analysis of the marketing-SDG engagements enabled
us to classify articles into three categories (e.g. type A, type B, and
type C) based on their degree and nature of engagement with SDGs.
Articles with type A engagement had direct engagement between
marketing and SDG-related issues, starting with a focus on the SDGs
and discussing it in the findings or the discussion section. Type B arti-
cles broadly engaged at the interface between marketing and SDGs,
but the linkages were not emphasized in their research purpose or
question(s). Finally, type C articles introduced the marketing-SDG
linkage at the back end (discussion section), mostly in discussing the
implications of the findings for SDGs. As shown in Appendix 1, our
sample included 19 Type A articles, 15 Type B articles, and 7 Type
C articles, indicating that only 46% (19) of the studies started with
an explicit SDG-related focus and adequately linked them to market-
ing topics. Below, we discuss the consumer and firm level themes.
Figure 7 provides a visual depiction of SDG Marketing scholarship
focusing on these two themes.
Consumer-level interactions between marketing and
SDGs
Amongst the 41 articles, 21 articles focused on consumer aspects of
marketing and sustainability (See Figure 7). As shown in Appendix
1, SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) attracted the
most interest from marketing scholars (covered in 16 articles), fol-
lowed by SDG 3 (Health and Well-being) (6 times). Other SDGs
have received limited attention.
Articles linked to SDG 12 explore, for example, consumer
understanding of the word sustainability (Barone et al., 2020),
green product buying intentions (see D’Souza et al., 2020; Stöckigt
et al., 2018; Testa et al., 2018; Wang & Chou, 2020, among oth-
ers) and consumer behavior (Principato et al., 2021). Health-related
articles focus on health promotion and prevention (see Ficek &
Novotný, 2019; Hu & Pratt, 2017). It is also interesting to note
the interconnectedness of the SDGs that has been highlighted in
literature. This is evident in Figure 6, where SDG 12 connects to
14 of the 17 SDGs. However, as Figure 6 shows, the connections
between the SDGs are weak, signifying the potential for market-
ing scholars to advance research in understanding the implications
for marketing due to the interconnectedness of the SDGs. Within
this stream, marketing scholars have paid little or no attention to
three SDGs: SDG-10 (Reduced Inequalities), SDG-14 (Life Below
Water), and SDG-16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions).
Most of the papers were qualitative in nature (n = 9), fol-
lowed by quantitative papers (n = 8), with a few conceptual and
Voola et al. 7

SDGs Covered

Focus areas
SDG-12 SDG-13 SDG-6 SDG-3 SDG-7
Responsible consumer behavior, (n=17) (n=6) (n=6) (n=6) (n=3)
Consumer responsible/social consumption, Fair
Behavior trade, ethical consumption, digital
N=21 marketing, social marketing, SDG-8 SDG-5 SDG-9 SDG-11 SDG-15
environmental/green marketing, fair (n=3) (n=2) (n=2) (n=2) (n=2)
trade, health promotion, brand
perception marketing communication,
Articles engaged in brand loyalty SDG-17 SDG-2 SDG-4
(n=2) (n=1) (n=1)
SDG Marketing
scholarship
N=ˇ41

Focus areas SDG-9 SDG-8 SDG-12 SDG-3 SDG-17

CSR campaign, technology enabled (n=7) (n=6) (n=6) (n=4) (n=3)
strategies, AI adoption, big data
Firm-level
analysis, machine learning, sustainable
Strategy marketing strategies, supply chain SDG-10 SDG-4 SDG-5 SDG-11 SDG-16
N= 20 management, event marketing, (n=2) (n=2) (n=2) (n=2) (n=2)

“enviropreneurial” marketing, marketing

network, spin offs and trade offs
SDG-6 SDG-7 SDG-13
(n=1) (n=1) (n=1)

Figure 7.  A visual depiction of SDG Marketing literature.

mixed-method papers (n = 2 in each category), thus showing an
imbalance between theoretical and empirical papers. Furthermore,
there were limited studies in Asia (n = 4), Europe, South America
and Oceania (see Figure 5).
Firm-level marketing and SDGs
In the 20 articles related to this stream, scholars have explored how
various facets of business can assist organizations in contributing
to the SDGs. Several articles in this category focused on the role
of technology in achieving SDGs at a global level (e.g. Canhoto,
2020), at the national industry level (fishing in Thailand—Tsolakis
et al., 2021), as well as at the organizational and functional level
(Bell et al., 2021; El-Haddadeh et al., 2021). Artificial intelli-
gence, big data, blockchain, and machine learning were found to
be critical for SDG achievement. Other articles covered topics such
as CSR (Cervelló-Royo et al., 2020; Mogaji et al., 2021); supply
chain architecture (Karki et al., 2021); strategic frameworks and
partnerships (Claro & Esteves, 2021; Eweje et al., 2020; Mattera
& Alba Ruiz-Morales, 2020; Svensson & Padin, 2021). The firm-
level connections span across 15 of the 17 SDGs, though many
of the connections are weak. Scholars are yet to investigate two
SDGs (7 and 15), which provide opportunities for future research.
Of these two, SDG 7 is central to the reduction of greenhouse gas
and the transition to a net-zero economy and requires urgent atten-
tion from marketing scholars.
Commonly used theories in this stream include stakeholder
theory and institutional theory, while other theories such as social
exchange theory, economic exchange theory, principal-agent theory
were also applied. Similar to the consumer marketing stream, most
of the papers were qualitative (n = 8), followed by quantitative papers
(n = 7) and a few conceptual and mixed-method papers (n = 2 in each
category). In terms of geographical coverage, majority of the articles
concentrated on Europe (n = 8), with little representation from Asia,
Africa, and South America (see Figure 5).
Agenda for future research
The 41 papers reviewed across the two streams are diverse and include
different approaches, methodologies, and geographies, adding useful
insights into the embeddedness of SDGs in marketing literature. In
suggesting future research, we do not focus on B2B marketing and
SDGs, as it has been addressed (see Voola et al., 2022). However, our
review uncovered gaps in the existing literature that point to areas
where research is needed to advance marketing literature.
Marketing capabilities and the SDGs
Surprisingly, only one paper in the firm-level marketing area adopts
the capability perspective to examine sustainability strategies (Hult
et al., 2018). It is critically important that marketing capabilities are
employed in addressing SDGs as “internal capabilities should pre-
cede the development of sustainability based managerial practices”
(Mariodoss et al., 2011, p. 1305), specifically the SDGs. Marketing
capabilities prioritize an outside-in perspective that allows firms to
sense and respond to external environments, attempt to understand
changes in consumer requirements, and to develop products that pro-
vide superior value (Chen et al., 2021). Therefore, marketing aca-
demics should attempt to identify marketing capabilities that lay a
strategic foundation for firms to proactively engage with the SDGs.
We, therefore, suggest the following research questions:
•• What marketing capabilities are necessary for firms to engage
effectively with the SDGs?
•• Do different SDGs require different marketing capabilities?
SDG focus and integration
Our findings highlight that while SDGs are gaining prominence in
marketing literature, they remain very much at the periphery. As
Appendix 1 highlights, only 19 (46%) articles across the two streams
8 Australasian Marketing Journal 00(0)
had Type A engagement, or an explicit and in-depth link with the
SDGs. This suggests that many articles made a passing reference to
the SDGs in the findings or the discussion section, highlighting an
opportunity in marketing literature for a more explicit and a strategic
focus on the SDGs.
Three of the 17 SDGs—SDG 10, 14, and 16—were not exam-
ined by studies in the consumer stream. This is surprising given that
marketing scholars have been urging marketers to consider ways
to reduce, rather than increase inequalities (SDGs 10) (Prothero &
Tadajewski, 2021). Life below water has a direct impact on indus-
tries dependent on marine life and ecosystems (such as shipping and
fishing) and provides a rich field for exploration. As B2B and B2C
customers/consumers approach life below water, their approach will
influence the policy and practice around marine industries. Similarly,
in firm-level strategy stream, SDGs 7 and 15 have not been explored,
although both these goals are central to the reduction of greenhouse
gases and transitioning to a net-zero economy. To this end, marketing
academics can explicitly incorporate SDGs into their research for an
in-depth analysis. Future research in this area could include:
•• How can marketers be more explicit and strategic in adopting
the SDG framework?
•• How can marketers employ the SDG framework as a basis for
marketing strategy?
•• What are the potential challenges of using the SDG frame-
work as a basis for marketing strategy?
•• How can marketers employ the SDG framework to under-
stand consumer behavior?
•• Why are some SDGs more aligned with marketing?
SDGs synergies and trade-offs
As SDGs are interconnected, there are potential synergies and trade-
offs for research to consider. For example, alleviating poverty (SDG
1) is impossible without addressing hunger and good health (SDG
2 and 3). However, barring a few studies (e.g. Karki et al., 2021,
combining goal 2 and goal 12), there is scant examination of the syn-
ergies. There is a need for marketing academics to explore such inter-
connectedness between SDGs so that synergies can be leveraged,
and trade-offs can be addressed. For example, in the traditional CSR
literature, scholars have examined it from four different perspectives
(i.e. win-win, trade-off, integrated, and paradox (Hahn et al., 2018;
Van der Byl & Slawinski, 2015), which can be applied in the context
of the SDGs. In our review, we didn’t find any article focused on
exploring SDG interconnectedness to identify any of these perspec-
tives, leading us to suggest the following research questions.
•• How can marketers engage with win-win, trade-off, inte-
grated, and paradox approaches, when implementing the
SDGs?
•• How can firms develop marketing strategies that address
multiple SDGs together?
•• How do the interaction and interconnectedness of SDGs
relate to SDG trade-offs and synergies in firm-level strategy
and in understanding consumer behavior?
•• How can marketing play a role in leveraging the synergies and
addressing the trade-offs in SDGs through communication?
Challenges, barriers, tensions, failures
Our review reveals that while most articles have considered differ-
ent pathways of achieving the SDGs, very few have looked at the
challenges of this transition (Alshubiri, 2020). Given the intercon-
nectedness of SDGs, there is also a need to have a systems think-
ing approach to drive change, which requires “a systems view of
organizations as embedded in society and the natural environment,”
including an examination of public policy (Van der Byl & Slawinski,
2015, p. 72). This suggests that marketers take a holistic view of the
role of marketing within society to understanding the SDGs. Some
suggested research questions in this area include:
•• How can systems thinking be adopted to engage with the
SDGs in the marketing context?
•• What firm-level challenges/barriers do marketers face while
transitioning to a green product?
•• How/when/why do consumers accept/resist a sustainable
alternative from an existing brand?
•• How can firms engaging in the SDGs reduce the perception
of woke washing?
Methodological approaches
In terms of methodology, the majority of the articles reviewed are
empirical, suggesting the need for conceptual and theoretical arti-
cles to shape thinking in the field (see Dermody et al., 2021).
Furthermore, many of the studies adopted traditional marketing the-
ories and frameworks in engaging with the SDGs, whilst, very few
studies adopted unconventional theories (e.g. just world theory, com-
plex systems thinking, resilience thinking, and norm activation the-
ory) that are more aligned to SDG-related aspects. Such an approach
seems to limit the degree of engagement between marketing litera-
ture and SDG-related issues. As a remedy, future research should
consider tapping into research design and ideas more aligned toward
the UN-SDG targets and indicators. For example, in the context of
poverty, Voola and Voola (2021) adopt a feministic methodological
perspective to subsistence marketplaces. Furthermore, new methods
such as neuroscientific methods (Lim, 2018), artificial intelligence,
and machine learning (Goodell et al., 2021), as well as experiments
(Lim et al., 2019), are evolving, and these methodological innova-
tions show promise in tackling the SDGs. To this end, we suggest the
following research questions:
•• What concepts outside of the marketing discipline can be
used to inform research on the SDGs?
•• How can newer methods, including neuroscientific meth-
ods, and machine learning, be used by marketing scholars to
inform the SDGs?
Geographical coverage
In terms of geographical coverage, extant literature is focused on
high and middle-income countries, both in terms of context and
authorship, whereas the SDG challenges are most acute in the
least developed or poor countries. For example, discussions on
SDGs often focus on small island developing nations that require
immediate attention in SDGs 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 17
(see https://sdgs.un.org/topics/small-island-developing-states).
However, marketing literature is silent on how marketing can
help these vulnerable geographies achieve the relevant SDGs.
Therefore, it is important to “explore beyond the familiar large
businesses most often studied in academic marketing research”
(Chandy et al., 2021, p. 3) and engage with emerging market pop-
ulations, each with their unique characteristics and challenges.
Specifically, it is important to understand how the SDGs can be
Voola et al. 9
implemented in vulnerable populations (Fletcher-Brown et al.,
2021), including how theories developed in the context of devel-
oped countries can be adapted to emerging countries in the con-
text of the SDGs (Ashik et al., 2021). Some suggested research
questions are:
•• How can marketing engage with vulnerable populations in
implementing the SDGs?
•• What lessons can we learn from the experiences of emerging
economies in implementing SDG initiatives?
•• Can the lessons learned from the experiences of emerging
economies in implementing SDG initiatives be transferred to
the developed economies? What are the potential challenges
and opportunities?
Contributions and conclusions
Theoretical contributions
Our paper makes three theoretical contributions. First, we address
the gap in the marketing literature relating to how marketing strategy
and consumer behavior scholars are engaging with the SDGs and
respond to calls for marketing academics to address the SDGs (e.g.
de Ruyter et al., 2022; Mende & Scott, 2021). Second, we build on
Voola et al. (2022) that focused on B2B marketing and the SDGs to
conduct a SLR of how the broader marketing literature has engaged
with SDGs from 2015 to 2021 (March). The third contribution
involves identifying critical areas for future research directions in
the context of SDGs in marketing. Specifically, we identified areas
for research that focus on SDG integration, SDGs synergies and
trade-offs, challenges, methodological approaches, and geographical
coverage, all of which contribute to the meaningful engagement of
marketing literature with broader societal issues.
Managerial implications
Our study provides several implications for practice. First, it is
important for firms engaging with sustainability to clearly link their
marketing strategies to the SDGs. This allows for communicating a
value proposition that consumers and other stakeholders understand
and value. Second, there are various innovations and technologies
that allow for engaging with the SDGs (e.g. neuromarketing, artifi-
cial intelligence), which may provide novel insights into engaging
with the SDGs.
Concluding remarks
As SDGs continue to gain prominence across all disciplines and sec-
tors as a universally agreed framework and a common language for
solving the world’s problems, the engagement of marketing academ-
ics with SDGs is critical. Although there has been a strong tradition
of marketing literature investigating sustainability that implicitly
examines aspects of the SDGs (e.g. Lim, 2016) we urge marketing
academics to explicitly examine the SDGs, clearly communicate
their work within the context of SDGs, which is likely to increase
the relevance of their work to various stakeholders, including prac-
titioners. Given the important interdependence between marketing
and society, our review points toward a transformational opportunity
for marketing academics to systematically engage with the SDGs.
We agree with Bolton (2021, p. 5) that “all work in marketing should
be considered in light of the SDGs” and encourage marketing aca-
demics to take a holistic and transformational approach to marketing,
with the SDGs as an anchor. In closing, we hope that our review will
serve as a roadmap and encourage marketing academics to engage
with the UN SDGs explicitly and strategically.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iDs
Ranjit Voola https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7016-5228
Chinmoy Bandyopadhyay https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8566-6869
Note
1. We further differ from Voola et al. (2022) in two other important
aspects. First, this SLR has a start date of 2015, whilst they do
not have a start date. Secondly, in this SLR we limit our search
terms explicitly to terms relating to the SDGs (“SDG” OR “sus-
tainable development goal” OR “UN SDG” OR “United Nations
SDG” OR “UN sustainable development goal” OR “United
Nations sustainable development goal” OR “post-2015 agenda”
OR “2030 agenda”), whilst their search terms are broad in
nature (“B2B marketing” OR “Business to business marketing”
OR “Industrial marketing” AND “Sustainable Development
Goal” OR “SDG” OR “sustainability” OR “Green” OR
“Environmental” OR “Corporate Social responsibility”).
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Appendix 1
Types of Marketing Scholarship-UN SDGs engagements.

Author Focus area SDGs covered Type of engagement

Firm-level marketing articles

  Tsolakis et al. (2021) Supply chain frameworks 1, 2, 5, 9, 12 A
  Alshubiri (2020) Reducing obstacles to sustainable development in the financial and labor 1, 3, 8, 9, 10 A
market
  Bell et al. (2021) Time-to-market cycles, product/service innovation cycles, market model 17 A
and stakeholders
  Eweje et al. (2020) Multi-stakeholder partnerships, market governance 17 A
  Rocha and Alexandre Weiss (2019) Institutional Markets, market research, market investments 11 A
  Canhoto (2020) Machine learning against financial market frauds 16 A
  Claro and Esteves (2021) Sustainability-oriented marketing strategies 3, 8 A
  Ferro et al. (2019) “Enviropreneurial” marketing, marketing networks, brand value, spinoffs 16, 17 A
  Karki et al. (2021) Supply chain management, distribution channels 2, 12 A
  El-Haddadeh et al. (2021) Value creation from big data analytics adoption 9 A
  Mattera and Alba Ruiz-Morales (2020) Sustainability-oriented marketing strategies 8 A
  Svensson and Padin (2021) Spin-offs and trade-offs, sustainable marketing 7, 9, 11 B
  Cervelló-Royo et al. (2020) Identifying new market opportunities 4, 9, 12 B
  Braganza et al. (2020) Impact of AI adoption on psychological contracts, job engagement, and 8 B
employee trust.
  Kristoffersen et al. (2020) Digital-enabled circular strategies 12 B
  Hult et al. (2018) Sustainable marketing strategies 12 B
  Spencer et al. (2019) Health promotion policy formation 3 B
  Yáñez-Araque et al. (2021) CSR Strategies and Plans, market capitalization, market performance, 9 C
market research and measures
  Mogaji et al. (2021) CSR campaigning strategy 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10 C
  Kartikawangi (2017) Event Marketing, implement green Strategy, green Process, green 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 13 C
Product

(continued)
12 Australasian Marketing Journal 00(0)

Appendix 1. (Continued)

Author Focus area SDGs covered Type of engagement

Consumer-level marketing and behavior articles

  Hepner et al. (2020) Consumer behavior, brand perception, CSR management, sustainability 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 12, A
marketing, green marketing, eco-marketing, competitive advantage 15, 17
  Lopez (2020) Marketing communication, campaigns, CSR communication and 6, 7, 9, 11, 13 A
marketing, branding and promotions
  de Villiers et al. (2021) Ethical consumption 6, 8, 12, 13, 15 A
  Kautish et al. (2020) Environmental marketing, green marketing, sustainable marketing, 12, 13 A
environmentally-friendly consumer behavior, green consumerism,
consumers’ sustainability consciousness, SDG endorsements
  D’Souza et al. (2020) Fair-trade purchasing behavior, personal norms, and attitude towards 8, 12 A
buying intentions
  Amoako et al. (2020) Green Marketing, emerging markets, advertising, packaging, pricing, 12, 13 A
green marketing strategies, purchasing behavior, brand loyalty, cause-
related marketing
  Di Vaio et al. (2020) Digital marketing, marketing functions, sustainable business models, 12 A
direct marketing, consumer behavior
  Palakshappa and Dodds (2020) Sustainable consumption and production, sustainable market orientation, 12 A
branding, brand co-creation, promotions, brand self-congruity
  Stöckigt et al. (2018) Delay discounting, consumer decisions, consumer attitude, responsible 12 B
consumption
  Kumar and Dholakia (2020) Responsible consumption, marketing strategies, expectancy-value theory 12 B
of achievement motivation, brand assurance, consumer behavior, choice
editing, design intervention
  Parth et al. (2021). Responsible consumption 12 B
  Barone et al. (2020) Consumer behavior, sustainable purchase 6, 7, 12 B
  Dermody et al. (2021) Sustainable/social consumption behavior 12, 13 B
  Testa et al. (2018) Responsible consumption, social norms message, purchase intention, 12, 17 B
buying behavior
  Wang and Chou (2020) Fairtrade product purchase intention 12 B
  Watabe et al. (2017) Health promotion 3 B
  Ficek and Novotný (2019) Community-level health and sanitation promotion 3, 6 B
  Principato et al. (2021) Consumer food waste behavior 12 C
  Laczniak and Santos (2018) The linkage between gross national happiness (GNH) and marketing 2, 4, 5, 6 C
  Shapiro et al. (2021) Macromarketing, social Marketing, consumer behavior, marketing 3, 12, 13 C
strategies, product innovation, sustainable marketing
  Hu and Pratt (2017) Marketing communication, campaigns 3, 11, 12 C

Note. Type A: Articles that begin with a focus on the marketing-SDG engagement (i.e. explicitly stated in the purpose of the research or the research
question(s) and continued to explore it throughout the paper; Type B: Articles that did not begin with a focus on the marketing-SDG engagement
(i.e. in the purpose of the paper or the research questions guiding the study, but continued to explore the engagement in other areas of the paper;
Type C: articles that briefly discussed the SDGs in the discussion or the implications sections.

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