Importance of Green Marketing What is Green Marketing? According to Polonsky, 1994, green marketing refers to all activities designed to produce and facilitate any exchange, which is intended to meet human needs and desires, so that the satisfaction of these needs and desires create a minimal negative impact on the natural environment.
In reality, in the emerging global scenario for environmental concern, companies have adopted green marketing as part of their strategy to promote products by using environmental claims either about their attributes or about the systems, policies and processes of the companies that manufacture or sell them. So, it is quite clear that green marketing is an integral part of the entire corporate strategy; together with the manipulation of the traditional marketing mix like product, price, promotion and location. It requires an understanding of the public policy process. We can, therefore, say that green marketing covers a wide range of activities such as, product modification, modification of the production process, packaging change and advertising modification. Importance of Green Marketing Since the early 1990s, there has been a major concern about the environmental impact of industrial households on the market. A direct outcome can be observed in developed and developing countries where Govt. has strictly imposed environmental protection regulations; at the same time, the consumers of those countries are increasingly becoming outspoken about their environment friendly needs. So, in this era green marketing has generated a number of impacts
Firms can utilise green marketing approaches in two ways- they can either use green marketing as marketing tool or they can work in this field without any promotion of the fact.
Green marketing provides companies with a proactive strategy to cater for the market by providing eco- friendly products and services that otherwise reduce or minimize any adverse impact on the environment. In the product area, a green marketing approach promotes the integration of environmental issues into all aspects of corporate activities starting from strategic design, planning, re- engineering in the production process to the consumer management. Green policies can reduce marketing costs; green firms can outline future regulations and gain the advantage of the first mover. As the concern for environment is increasing, consumers’ attitude to companies with green policies or green products is becoming a motivating factor. Some companies have adopted strategy of green marketing for building an image rather than inculcating it as part of politics and silence. In some cases, this competitive pressure has changed the whole industry and reduced its harmful environmental behaviour. In an attempt to control the costs of waste disposal, companies may also use green marketing. Therefore, companies that could introduce green marketing by not inculcating or reducing the use of harmful ingredients would be able to significantly reduce its operating costs.
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