The impact of green marketing on consumer buying behaviour
- Sweta Limbachiya
- 20 hours ago
- 11 min read
The impact of green marketing on consumer buying behaviour
Green marketing refers to the marketing of products and services that are presumed to be environmentally safe. Green marketing is different from traditional marketing, as marketing focuses on promoting environmentally friendly products. It is also known as Environmental or Ecological marketing. These activities are rapidly growing across the globe and have an important role in creating awareness among consumers regarding eco-friendly products and their impact on the environment, which helps consumers in their buying decisions.
Introduction
In the modern era of globalization, the biggest need of the time is not to keep the customers and consumers intact, but also to keep our natural environment safe. Consumers are aware of the increasing environmental issues such as global warming, acid rain, the ozone layer, and degradation of land, etc. This increased consumer concern towards eco-friendly products is for the rehabilitation of the ecological balance. Thus, environmentalism is considered to be an essential aspect. As today’s consumers are becoming more and more conscious of natural products, businesses are beginning to modify their own thoughts and behaviour in order to meet the concerns of the consumers. This has created some impact on the marketing. Many corporations, such as McDonald’s, Walmart, Procter Gamble, and DuPont, have appreciated that the environment must be protected and enhanced to support economic growth by taking various actions to fulfill the needs of the environment. They are using herbal toiletries, stationery from recycled paper, no-smoking rooms, less wastage of water, less detergent, and the use of polystyrene containers for packaging hamburgers, etc.
Apart from consumers and businesses, even the government has taken several initiatives by making many regulations in support of the protection of the environment. Here The impact of green marketing on consumer buying behaviour.
E.g., the ban on plastics in many parts of the country. Thus, Green marketing refers to the marketing of products and services based on environmental concerns. It can be rightly said that green marketing is a holistic concept involving environmentally friendly practices in all stages, such as the production, designing, marketing, and selling of goods or services.
Green marketing is the marketing of prodcuts and services that are enviromental safe- American Marketing Association
Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework of the paper is divided into two parts:
Meaning of Green Marketing
According to the American Marketing Association, green marketing is "the efforts by the organization to produce, promote, package, and reclaim products in a manner that is sensitive or responsive to ecological concerns."
Thus, green marketing assimilates a wide range of activities such as
Modification of products
Alteration to the production process
Sustainable packaging
Improving advertising
In absolute terms, green marketing refers to the process of selling goods or services that are either eco-friendly in themselves or are packaged or produced in an environmentally friendly manner. Green marketing aims to sustain the environment in the following ways:
Eliminate the concept of waste
Reinvest the concept of product
Make environmentalism profitable
2.2 Meaning of Eco-Friendly Products
Eco-friendly products ( also known as green products or environmentally friendly products) are those products or services whose manufacturing, design are done through clean technology that do not cause any damage to the environment. Promotions of green technology and green products are necessary for the conservation of natural resources and sustainable development.
Green products have various characteristics such as:
Products with natural and chemical-free ingredients
Products are biodegradable
The product has eco-friendly packaging
Product grown originally
Products can be recycled and reused—the reusable, refillable containers, etc.
Products do not harm or pollute the environment.
Efficient products that save energy, water, gasoline, and money
A product that is not tested on animals.
Eco-friendly products are now in every field, for e.g., clothing, home/restaurant items, jewellery, shopping items, coffee cups, drink bottles, and many more.
These products have gained popularity because of their minimal impact on the environment. In other words, these products help preserve the environment by significantly reducing the pollution they produce. An eco-friendly product can be made from scratch or from recycled materials. These products are easily recognizable through various green marketing tools such as eco-labels, eco-brands, and environmental advertising.
Companies are emerging to produce these eco-friendly products. For example, Nike is the first among the shoe companies to make products with minimal usage of harmful glue adhesives, thus focusing more on environmentally friendly materials.
Green marketing consist of all activites designed to generate and facilities any exchanges intended to statisfy human needs or wants such that statisfication of these needs and wants occurs with minimal degradation impact on that natural enviroment-Micheal Jay Polonsky.
Evolution of Green Marketing
Ecological marketing encourages industries and business firms to produce and promote goods and services that have a positive impact on the environment and develop new technology that helps to reduce environmental problems. According to Peattie, the evolution of green marketing has been divided into three phases:
The first phase was termed " Ecological" Green marketing, which is concerned with the problems related to environmental issues and also provides measures to solve these environmental issues.
The second phase was termed "Environmental" Green marketing, which is concerned with the production of green products that have a positive impact on the environment and also take care of waste issues. This phase also includes the innovation of new technology to protect the environment from degradation.
The third phase was termed as "Sustainable" Green marketing, which came into existence in the 1980s and 1990s, explaining the proper utilisation of natural resources.
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Green Marketing Mix
A large number of research studies state that Green marketing has the same components as the marketing mix, i.e, Green Product, Green Price, Green Place, and Green Promotion. According to Kotler and Keller, the marketing mix can be defined as" mixing and matching marketing activities to maximize their individual and collective efforts".
Green Products
Companies identify the needs and wants of consumers and produce goods according to the needs and wants of the customers. The green products have the following features:
Products with green labelling, i.e., eco labels
Products that can be recycled
Products that are eco-friendly
Products with eco-friendly packaging that help reduce pollution.
Products that use less energy and have a low price.
Products made up of the optimum utilisation of resources
Products that are concerned with sustainability issues
Green Price
Price is an important factor for products as well as for customers because it decides the demand for the products. Customers are willing to pay higher prices for the goods only if they are getting green benefits from the consumption of products. Green pricing should be decided so that it increases productivity and also takes care of the people, planet, and profit.
Marketers should fix the price of green products according to the income of the customers and according to the demand for green products. The green price should be fixed in such a way that more customers can afford it and companies can earn more profits.
Green Place
Place is also an important factor to be considered because some people are not willing to travel to buy products. To attract consumers, place selection is important, as the distribution of green products is an important task. Green Place is about managing logistics to cut down transportation emissions and aims to reduce the carbon footprint. Green products should be made easily available in the global market so that customers can easily buy products.
Green Promotion
Green promotion involves tools of promotion such as advertising, public relations, direct marketing, sales promotion, site promotions, marketing materials, videos, and packaging of products. Traditional advertising are now replaced by green advertising. Many companies are promoting their products and services by using internet advertising. The Internet and web-based advertising are important tools used by companies for the promotion of goods and services.
Many researchers have claimed the 7Ps of Green marketing, which includes green process, green people, green product, and green physical evidence. Other external P's of green marketing are - paying customers, providers, politicians, pressure groups, problems, predictions, and partners.
Four services of Green Marketing
Satisfaction of customer needs and wants
Safety of products and production for consumers, society, workers, and the environment.
Social acceptability of the product, its production, and other activities of the company.
Sustainability of the product, its production process, and other activities of the company.
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF A GREEN PRODUCT
The development of a green product goes through four stages, just like a normal product does.
First stage: Development Stage | During the first stage, the main objective of the raw material or component parts. Here, the manufacturers are encouraged to check the environmental programs of suppliers, the minimal packaging of inputs, and the use of raw materials, which can be easily recycled. |
Second stage: Production stage | This stage is focused on encouraging manufacturing companies to reduce waste, emissions, and toxins, and also encourages manufacturers to conserve resources and find alternative sources of energy. |
Third stage: Consumption stage | This stage is focusing on minimisation of packaging, conservation of energy and also focused on the reduction of waste in the environment. |
Fourth Stage: Final stage | This is the final stage of the development of a green product. It focused on the reuse and recycled of products. |
Benefits of Green Marketing
Green marketing increases the competition in the environment and sustains long-term growth with sustainable development.
Green marketing saves time and money in the long term.
Green marketing manufacturers provide goods to customers that are eco-friendly in nature and do not degrade the environment.
Green marketing helps in the better utilisation of resources and saves resources for future generations.
Green marketing helps in the saving of energy, reduces the use of natural resources, and reduces the carbon footprint.
Green marketing recycles the products into a new product that can be used in the future in another form.
Green marketing reduces the negative impact on the environment.
Green marketing helps in the implementation of new innovations and technology, according to the environment.
Green marketing also to build the reputation of a company and earns goodwill.
CHALLENGES OF GREEN MARKETING
Green marketing is a new concept, and many consumers around the world are still not aware of green products; it is a great challenge for manufacturers to achieve green marketing successfully.
There are no compulsory rules and regulations for consumers to purchase green products.
Renewable resources and recyclable materials that are used in the production of green products is expensive in nature.
Green marketing requires a new technology that requires investment for research and development.
Some customers are not aware of the green products and services, so they purchase traditional products over green products.
Customers are not ready to pay premium prices for green products because the products are expensive, and not everyone can afford it.
It is difficult to convince customers to purchase green products.
If you want to have a deep discussion about green marketing link is below :https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319218087_Green_Marketing_A_Study_of_Consumer_Perception_on_using_Eco-Friendly_Products
Reasons for the Adoption of Green Strategy by Firms
Customers are now demanding more green products over traditional products because of environmental issues. Companies see it as an opportunity to adopt green marketing and market new kinds of products and earn more profits.
Many firms have started mixing environmental issues with their business culture. So companies behave in an eco-friendly manner to achieve environmental objectives. Firms announce their environmental strategy, and they commit their action towards a sustainable environment.
Governments of different countries established different rules and regulations to protect both the consumer and the environment. The government established guidelines to control green marketing claims by firms and ensure that consumers have the right information about green products.
Green marketing increases competition pressure in the green market, due to which many companies started adopting a green strategy to survive in the market. Green strategy to survive in the market. Green marketing increases the profit and goodwill of the company.
The customer has changed their opinion towards green products and has started demanding more green products as a result of the business firms and companies starting to practice a green strategy.
Many companies started practicing a green strategy nd use alternative resources for the production of goods in order to conserve natural resources from degradation.
The marketers have limited resources both in raw materials and financial. Adopting a green strategy reduces the cost of production due to the use of recycled materials.
Looking forward to seeing more work ahead in green marketing Common Green Marketing Claims by a Firm
VOC Free- VOC stands for volatile organic compounds. VOCs are usually found in paints, floor polish, and household cleaning products, such as charcoal lighter fluid and some hair styling products. VOC-emitted gases are negative for the environment and the health of people.
Free from Harmful Chemicals: Companies claim that their products are green in nature and free from any harmful chemicals, and do not have a negative impact on the health of the users.
Non-Toxic- Marketers state that their products are non-toxic in nature, and it is safe for both humans and the environment.
Ozone Friendly- The ozone layer in the atmosphere prevents harmful radiation from the sun from reaching the earth. The company states that its products are ozone-free, it do not harm the layer of ozone.
Biodegradable- The Company claims their products are biodegradable and can be easily decomposed. Does not have any harm to nature and animals.
Recyclable products- Business firms claim that their products are easily recyclable in nature and can be used in another form and used for further manufacturing of products.
Carbon Offset Claim: Companies can make claims to take action in reducing greenhouse gases in the environment, like planting more trees, using green technology which safe for the environment, and reducing carbon footprints.
Renewable resources: Many companies claim to use more renewable resources in place of nonrenewable resources and promote or use it in a proper way.
Types Of Green Marketing Strategies
Green strategy helps to make decisions and transform business strategies into green startegies into green strategies to improve the quality of the environment. A green strategy helps to define the goals, mission, and vision of a company according to the environment, and its top priorities are to provide green goods and services in the global marketplace.
There are different green strategies which are below-
Green Design - The First green marketing strategy is to design their product and services into green from the beginning. Companies have to change their production process into a green process and advertising into green advertising. Green design is the production of products that are eco-friendly in nature and use less energy, are flexible in nature, and are designed for longer use, and fulfill the condition of reuse, reduce, and recycle.
Green Positioning - Green positioning builds brand positioning by providing information about the products. Eco-friendly products will be successful if they are not communicated properly to the customers. Green positioning has two types, i.e., functional positioning and emotional positioning, which are related to the customer preferences of a product.
Green Pricing- Green pricing is an important strategy for green marketing because the cost of production and demand of a product depend on green marketing. Green pricing should be fixed in such a way that the customer can purchase green products, and allows customers to participate in the sustainability of the environment.
Green Packaging- Green packaging attracts customers to purchase products. Green packaging is done by using raw materials and manufacturing methods that are eco-friendly in nature, and have a low impact on energy consumption and on the environment. Companies should use biodegradable packaging and provide customers with a symbol of the company, claiming that the company is adopting green marketing. For example, use paper bags for packaging in place of plastic bags.
Green Disposal: Green disposal is considered for every step of the product's life cycle, from production to disposal. Green disposal is the recycling of products into new products. Green disposal reduces emissions of harmful materials and reduces pollution in the environment.
Conclusion :
Green marketing is an instrument for protecting the environment for future generation by conserving natural resourses and use alternative sources of energy for production of goods and services. Green marketing is not easy concept to be performed by any companies and business firms. Business firms and companies implement rules and regulations to acheive the goals of green marketing strategy.
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