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MARKETING & SUSTAINABILITY Why and how sustainability is changing current marketing practices

Hugo Guyader Mikael Ottosson Anders Parment

COPYING PROHIBITED All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The papers and inks used in this product are eco-friendly.

Art. No 43114 ISBN 978-91-44-13986-9 First edition 1:1 ÂŠ Authors and Studentlitteratur 2020 studentlitteratur.se Studentlitteratur AB, Lund Design: Jesper SjĂśstrand/Metamorf Design Group Layout: Catharina Grahn/ProduGrafia Cover design: John Persson Cover illustration: Shutterstock.com Printed by Eurographic Group 2020

Contents

Foreword 5 Preface 7

1 Marketing and sustainability 11 Introduction 11 Social, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainability 19 Outline of the book 26

2 What is a “sustainable consumer” anyway? 27 Introduction 27 Definition of sustainable consumption and the “sustainable consumer” 29 Sustainable consumption in Sweden 40

3 Influencing more sustainable consumption 51 Introduction 51 General factors influencing consumption 52 Stages of the consumption process 57 The attitude-behavior green gap 62 How to influence consumers to behave more sustainably? 66

4 How firms (have to) operate for sustainability 89 Introduction 90 Combining socio-environmentally and economically sustainable competitiveness 94 From green products to green services 96 Green service research 96 Defensive, reactive, and proactive approaches to sustainability 100

Megatrends are imposing a circular production and the re-usage of resources 104 Why do companies not align their operations with sustainability? 109 How may companies improve their sustainability endeavors? 112 Getting companies to walk the talk 118

5 The new marketing communications landscape 123

6 Branded society and implications 153 Introduction 154 The branded society 154 Deceptive practices in marketing communications 163 Why brands play an important role in sustainability efforts 176

7 Sustainable business models 183 Introduction 183 The role of business models in sustainable development 185 Product-service systems (PSS) 193 Sharing economy business models 196

8 Sustainable marketing channels 223 Introduction 223 Marketing channels: Customer orientation vs. sustainability 226 Challenges in making marketing channels practices sustainable 232

9 Conclusion 249 References 253 Image sources 271

4 Contents

Introduction 123 Marketing communication regarding sustainability 124 The new marketing communications landscape 135 Sustainable employer brands 146

Chapter 1

Marketing and sustainability This chapter introduces how the field of marketing relates to the broad phenomenon of sustainability. It also introduces the term sustainability, its role in today’s society, and the historical significance of sustainability in the field of marketing. Finally, the outline of the book is presented. After reading this chapter, you should be able to: • define and use the three dimensions of sustainability in various contexts • understand the historical shift from traditional to sustainability marketing and the conceptual development towards ecological and social, and not only economic, aspects of marketing activities • understand sustainable development and the three pillars of sustainability: long-term economic viability, societal and ethical concerns, and the protection of the environment and future generations • distinguish between hard and soft applications of sustainability.

Introduction It is no exaggeration to claim that the issue of sustainability has become increasingly important over the last decades — one might even argue that it is now the foremost important topic. Regardless of whether we talk about climate change, declining biological diversity, the chemical society, child

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labor, corruption, or reductions in numbers of animal species, sustainability issues are of such key importance today that they concern all companies, consumers, organizations in the public sector, as well as the organizations in civil society. Sustainability is thus a concept against which all questions facing companies and organizations can be set: that is, choice of suppliers, strategies for recruiting and retaining employees, product development, choice of distribution channels, marketing campaigns, and communication strategies. As noted by Kolk and van Tulder (2010), companies and organizations are expected to contribute towards sustainable development, both in their operations and in relation to the offerings they supply to their customers. In line with this, the need for operational transparency is increasing, which means that demand expectations on companies and organizations are growing. For instance, the Annual Accounts Act — “Årsredovisningslagen” (1995) — of the Swedish accounting legislation was revised in 2016 so that companies have to publish sustainability accounts, such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. As a result, more and more companies and organizations are now required to account for their sustainability efforts. All large companies — that is, companies with more than 250 employees, and a total balance sheet above SEK 175 million or a revenue above SEK 350 million — are obliged to identify socio-environmental risks, but they must also describe how these risks are linked to the company’s operations. The majority of Swedish medium- and large-sized companies, as well as major civil society organizations and actors in the public administration, have one or more members of staff working solely with sustainability issues. This means that a concern for sustainability is integrated into most companies’ operations, underlining the fact that sustainability issues are not some short-term trend but more likely an extremely palpable and real issue for today’s organizations. Despite the above-mentioned developments, sustainability issues continue to play a subordinate role in the basic textbooks used in marketing. At best, these issues are discussed in a chapter (Kotler et al. 2016), but they are usually mentioned as a current trend together with, for instance, e-marketing in the form of a paragraph, a case, or some discussion points (Fahy and Jobber 2019). It has been almost 50 years since the first books on Marketing and the Ecological Crisis (Fisk 1974) and Ecological Marketing (Henion and

Kinnear 1976) were published. However, marketing textbooks still have a great responsibility when it comes to capturing an increasingly important part of the practices addressed by the subject of marketing. This is increasingly being done in the Anglo-Saxon literature through academic authors such as Peattie (1999), Martin and Schouten (2012), Emery (2012), and Belz and Peattie (2012). Some authors have taken a different approach, not writing a textbook for students but rather a how-to guide for entrepreneurs, such as the books on Green Marketing by Coddington (1993), Ottman (1993; 1998; 2011), and Grant (2007) — or even McDonough and Braungart’s (2002; 2013) Cradle to Cradle and Upcycle. These textbooks and popular science literature, however, are rather outdated, very extensive, and largely based on examples of limited relevance in a Swedish context. This book often takes examples from Sweden, which is considered the “greenest country” (GGEI 2018) and frequently used as an example of sustainable production and consumption in Europe (McCormick et al. 2015; Mikkola et al. 2016). Our hope is that this book will meet the need for a marketing textbook and contribute towards an increased awareness of sustainability issues among business students, professionals, and other interested parties. VIGNETTE: Henion and Kinnear, the precursors Based in the US, Karl E. Henion (lecturer in marketing at the University of Texas) and Thomas C. Kinnear (assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario) were among the first academics to consider the growth of the environmental movement (e.g., the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, Greenpeace was founded in 1971) and the legislative progress towards environmental protection (e.g., the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 1970 and 1972, respectively). They took an interest in researching the particular segment of consumers who care for the environmental impact of their consumption and published a series of scientific papers on the topic (Henion 1972; Kinnear and Taylor 1973; Kinnear et al. 1974). In 1975, they organized the American Marketing Association’s “First National Workshop on Ecological Marketing” (cf. Henion 1981), which led to the publication of the seminal book Ecological Marketing (Henion and Kinnear 1976). They wrote: “In relation to the marketing component, ecological marketing is concerned with all marketing activities: (1) that have served to help cause environmental problems

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and (2) that may serve to provide a remedy for environmental problems. […] Thus, ecological marketing is the study of the positive and negative aspects of marketing activities on pollution, energy depletion and nonenergy resource depletion.” (p. 1) This followed the contemporary marketing concept (cf. Kotler and Zaltman 1971) to propose an improvement of environmental quality and resource conservation proactively from the business sector, rather reactively through public regulations.

Sustainability and marketing are two concepts that, upon first glance, can create ambiguous associations. Is “sustainability marketing” actually an oxymoron? On the one hand, traditional marketing encourages growth, promotes an endless quest for satisfying needs and wants, and seems to look upon resources as forever abundant. On the other hand, a sustainability focus suggests that utilized resources can be renewed by mimicking the circular flows of resources in nature, and it respects the fact that the capacity of both resources and the environment are limited (cf. White et al. 2019). So, how can marketing, which in the minds of the general public is usually seen as only concerned with increasing sales of products (i.e., goods, services, and solutions), contribute towards sustainability? In order to answer this critical question, we first have to define what marketing is as an academic discipline, a professional activity, and a subject of scientific research. This will help us to understand that marketing and sustainability are inextricably intertwined. In relation to this, the American Marketing Association (AMA) — the most influential authority in our discipline, whose website is full of useful resources for students, academics, and professionals (ama.org) — selected the following definition for the discipline (2013): Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

That is, marketing scholarship is no longer only concerned with selling more and more products. As can be seen, the actual value process between

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How does sustainability relate to marketing?

the company, its market, and the wider society is of key importance in the definition. Already in the early days of the discipline, there was a concern for such sustainability. For instance, Robert Bartels is not only considered one of the fathers of the marketing discipline, but he was also among the first scholars to contest the evolution of marketing concepts and their implementation in businesses (Bartels 1968):

Society, not the business entrepreneur, is the basic undertaker of all activity. Marketing is that activity undertaken by society at large to meet its consumption needs—the producing, distributing, and consuming of products needed for human existence.

In other words, Bartels criticized the contemporary assumption “that the bottomless marketing cornucopia would provide rich harvests to society forever” (Iyer 1994), and he argued that aligning societal, environmental, and business values would be essential for the long-term welfare of society (Bartels 1968). Nowadays, there is a well-established environmental and societal imperative for marketers to recognize the sustainability issues related to globalization and cultural differences, the role of the Internet and social media, the proliferation of brands, the increased retail concentration, and the 2008 economic recession for example. Moreover, many influential scholars not

Nowadays, most marketing theorists assume that buyers and sellers co-create value, a fundamental shift in marketing focus.

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VIGNETTE: Green marketing, sustainability marketing — same same but different? In the American Marketing Association (AMA) dictionary, the term “sustainability marketing” is unfortunately not mentioned. The AMA prefers the older term “green marketing,” which is rather defined from a manufacturing and retailing approach, with an environmental twist. Green marketing refers to the development and marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe (i.e., designed to minimize negative effects on the physical environment or to improve its quality). This term may also be used to describe efforts to produce, promote, package, and reclaim products in a manner that is sensitive or responsive to ecological concerns. (marketing-dictionary.org)

This definition is very much in line with Polonsky (1994), who conceptualized green marketing activities as the generation and facilitation of marketplace exchanges with a minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment. It also recognizes the contribution of Peattie (2001) by emphasizing marketing activities that attempt to reduce the negative impact of existing products and manufacturing processes and to promote more environmentally sound products and services. While focusing on “green” manufacturing (i.e., improving the systems of production) is in line with long-term environmental and economic perspectives,

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only argue that marketing is no longer only about selling but also about activities and processes of co-creation of value within multi-actor systems (Grönroos and Voima 2013; Vargo and Lusch 2011). A key factor in being able to build up such long-term relations relates to analyses of customer needs, followed by focusing value-creation in such a way that products and offerings correspond to needs and desires. In this context, it is relevant to think about which customer to focus on and whether or not this customer’s short-term needs should always be met. There are many examples of companies choosing to desist from attempting to meet certain customer requirements. Tobacco, pornography, and alcohol are examples of products that may be problematic from a societal perspective. Should a company merely focus in the short-term on exchanges with today’s customers or also attempt to create long-term relations with the customers of the future? Depending on which strategy a company chooses in this regard, its sustainability decisions will be affected.

it lacks the complete sustainability approach that includes social and societal improvements at all stages of the production and consumption processes aiming to improve individual, environmental, and societal well-being (Guyader et al. 2019; Ostrom et al. 2015). Eventually, one may note that it has soon been four decades since the Brundtland Report (1987) and “the ‘euphoric’ discovery of the environment by marketing practitioners and academics” (cf. Peattie and Crane 2005, p. 357). As such, the nomenclature and terminology around the term green marketing have definitely evolved. Thus, we can denote three phases: • “Ecological” green marketing in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with a rapid increase in green consumerism due to a concern from businesses to help solve environmental problems (e.g., pollution and waste issues).

• “Environmental” green marketing in the late 1980s when the focus shifted to clean technology, new green product design, and the widespread implementation of ISO standards and third-party certifications. • “Sustainable” (green) marketing since the 1990s and early 2000s, which is the most common term relating marketing activities to all three pillars of the sustainable development goals established by the United Nations.

Word frequency in Google Books

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

Green marketing

Environmental marketing

Sustainable marketing

Ecological marketing

2005

Figure 1.1 Evolution of the terms related to “Green Marketing”. While ecological (1980s), environmental (1990s), and sustainable (2000s) marketing have followed each other over time as definitions were revised, green marketing has been the preferred term in books. SOURCE: GOOGLE BOOK S NGRAM VIEWER.

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Relating the field of marketing to sustainability The aim of this book is to highlight, discuss, and problematize sub-areas where it is particularly important to relate the field of marketing to sustainability. These sub-areas deal with key parts of marketing where the link to sustainability issues is seldom problematized in the basic course literature. These sub-areas are: consuming and sustainability producing and sustainability communicating and sustainability distributing and sustainability.

There are, of course, many other areas that may be just as interesting. This book is not comprehensive — textbooks seldom are — and we could have added more material regarding, for instance, the interconnected development of digitization and sustainability, or sustainable service innovations. Our hope, nevertheless, is that we emphasize the parts that are crucial by following the most common way of relating to marketing activities (i.e., consuming, producing, communicating, and distributing). The format of this book limits our ability to discuss every conceivable aspect, and our hope is that the discussions conducted in this book will contribute towards greater knowledge and more reflection on sustainability issues within businesses in general and the practice of marketing in particular. In each respective chapter, we sandwich insights from contemporary research and present theoretical concepts with Swedish and international examples. For these four themes, there are clear links between marketing and sustainability. In our concluding chapter, we problematize and discuss the future of marketing and how sustainability may increasingly be integrated. In a nutshell, the concepts of marketing and sustainability might be seen as polar opposites, but in our book, it means focusing on how companies and other organizations work in an integrated way with the social, environmental, and economic aspects of marketing activities at various levels from strategic planning to practical implementation. Our ambition in writing this book is thus to get past the superficial examples that used to be common in some of the literature on CSR — such as companies that donate funds to schools in

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• • • •

under-developed countries but which otherwise conduct its business in an unsustainable way. Our conviction is that sustainability cannot be achieved if these issues are not given strategic significance and permeate core activities. A basically unsustainable business can thus never be laundered using statements about sustainability and expensive advertising campaigns — a practice called “greenwashing” which we will come back to in chapter 5.

Social, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainability What, then, does sustainability mean? The dictionary definition is: “(well) founded, firm, secure, lasting.” Sustainable things can either be material or immaterial. As pointed out by Bonnedahl (2012), it is often difficult to assess in advance what will last. For instance, the time horizon is critical. If we apply a sufficiently long-term perspective, then hardly anything will be sustainable. Another key question concerns what is worth preserving over time — maybe some products should be abandoned for the better, like substituting combustion engine vehicles with electric ones. Moreover, many of the resources we are naturally consuming today did not even exist a couple of decades ago. A moment’s reflection enables us to quickly realize that interpretations of what sustainability entails are far from unambiguous. We return to this discussion later in the book. By adding the term development, another dimension is introduced, according to Bonnedahl (2012). The dictionary definition of this term is: “a process by means of which something is changed and often becomes more complicated or valuable.” Development is normally a term with positive associations, often equated with progress. The term sustainable development owes its breakthrough to the prominent 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, compiled by the United Nations (UN) World Commission on Environment and Development under the leadership of the then prime minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland (WCED 1987). This report ended up becoming very significant as it paved the way for a new and less confrontational view on the link between economics and sustainability. The concept of sustainable development was developed by the American environmental scientist Lester R. Brown. Following acceptance of this as

Chapter 1 Marketing and sustainability

a principle, large parts of the e nvironmental movement, the world’s politicians, and trade and industry would all start working together from the 1990s and onwards. Instead of emphasizing that sustainability and economic growth are incompatible, which has been a dominant perception, the Brundtland Commission argued that economic growth was possible while being based on sustainable considerations. The Brundtland Commission’s original definition of the term sustainable development reads as follows (WCED 1987, Chapter 2, p. 2): Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: • the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and • the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.

As marketing is concerned with satisfying the needs and wants of consumers — and building profitable relationships with them — the principles of sustainable development are highly relevant here. In particular, the 12th Sus-

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In a sustainable society, begging to make a living is avoided.

tainable Development Goal (SDG) of the UN is actually about “responsible consumption and production,” something that businesses, non-profit organizations, and governmental bodies should strive for in our global marketplace. In other words, organizations can satisfy the desires of consumers today in a way that is responsible (i.e., sustainable) and not preventing future consumers to live their own life. But it is important to remember that all this started with Brundtland Commission more than 30 years ago and that marketers can put yet more efforts into understanding what sustainable development means and integrating concerns for sustainability into their practices. Nowadays, we emphasize three responsibilities in sustainable development: economic prosperity, environmental integrity, and social equity. In detail, economic sustainability comprises factors concerning how we can create sound economic growth without, for example, bribes and corruption. Environmental (sometimes called ecological) sustainability emphasizes that economic growth cannot occur at the expense of our nature, environment, and ecology. Social (sometimes called societal) sustainability, finally, is about building a long-term sustainable society in which people’s basic needs are met. This includes working conditions, and income equality. It is often difficult to keep the three different parts of the sustainability concept apart, as economic, environmental, and social sustainability frequently touch upon and even overlap each other (see Figure 1.2). Introducing new energy-efficient ventilation systems into industrial manufacturing can, for instance, reduce energy consumption and costs, improve the working environment of the staff, and Environmental create economic growth in integrity the environmental technology industry. But it is sometimes difficult for organizations to balance the three pillars of Economic Social sustainable development — prosperity equity

Sustainable development

Figure 1.2 Sustainable develop ment is concerned with economic, environmental, and social factors.

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VIGNETTE: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which represent an urgent call for action by all countries (i.e., developed and developing) in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other forms of deprivation must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth — simultaneously as they tackle climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

SOURCE: UNITED NATIONS

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something we come back to when discussing the paradoxical tensions of the triple bottom line in chapter 8. The aim of the Swedish government is that the three dimensions of sustainable development — economic, environmental, and social — will concordantly and mutually support each other. For instance, Stockholm aims to be totally fossil free by 2040 (City of Stockholm 2016). This environmental objective can only be achieved by sending clear signals to the market already today (i.e., an economic factor). For example, considering that a private car has a lifespan of around 20 years, vehicles powered with a combustion engine (fueled by petrol or diesel) should not be sold from 2020 onwards. For the transition to start as soon as possible, marketing efforts

(i.e., product design, pricing, communication, incentives for behavioral change, etc.) are necessary — for example, communicating the lower usage costs of electric vehicles to balance the higher upfront costs that consumers usually consider when purchasing a new car. Similarly, Oslo aims to reduce 95 percent of its emissions by 2030 (Oslo Kommune 2017) and Copenhagen wants to become the first carbon-neutral city in the world by 2025 (Københavns Kommune 2012). Anyhow, the term sustainability is also ambiguous — similarly to the term CSR. For instance, Dahlsrud (2008) found thirty-seven different definitions of the term CSR in a review of its use. The advantage of the term sustainability vis-à-vis CSR, however, is that it has a clearer (but far from unambiguous) definition — thanks to the Brundtland Commission — which is applied both in Sweden and internationally. At the UN summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg in 2002, the concept of sustainable development was recognized as a superordinate principle for all UN work, underscoring the wide spread application of initiatives for sustainability in society, and the prevalence of the term nowadays. VIGNETTE: The Climate Act [Klimatlag] (2017:720) On January 1, 2018, the Climate Act went into effect in Sweden. The Climate Act has broad support in the parliament (Riksdag). By 2030, the total emissions from transports, work machines, industry, energy production, housing, and agriculture should be 63 percent lower compared to 1990. After 2045, Sweden should have zero emissions. The transport sector has its own goal. In 2030, it will emit 70 percent less than in 2010. For those producing vehicles, this issue is thus extremely important, but also for, for example, haulers planning to buy new vehicles or organize transport chains. Each year, the government will report the current progress in the fall budget, as well as which decisions have been taken in the emission area and which will be taken. An action plan must also be presented in order to achieve the objectives set by the parliament. The government will make use of both increased taxes on carbon dioxide emissions and subsidies for energy-efficient technologies and renewable energy.

Chapter 1 Marketing and sustainability

It is commonplace to differentiate between a soft and hard interpretation of sustainability. A soft interpretation of the term — “weak sustainability” — refers to the substitution of certain resources with others (Bonnedahl 2012; Pihl 2007). In order to build homes and reduce homelessness, we have to produce, for example, timber, concrete, bricks, and windows. This kind of production will utilize and consume finite resources and generate emissions. A supporter of the soft interpretation of sustainability would accept a certain amount of environmental impact in order to increase social sustainability (i.e., providing more people with a roof over their heads). The most important aspect, according to this perspective, would thus be balancing the various parts of the sustainability concept while not reducing the ability of future generations to generate prosperity. On the other hand, a hard interpretation of the term — “strong sustainability” — would reject this line of reasoning allowing different parts of sustainability to be traded off against one another (Bonnedahl 2012; Pihl 2007). No compromises can be made for supporters of the hard interpretation. Of course, such a line of reasoning, according to the critics, presupposes that all the various resources can actually be fully substituted. Natural resources that are depleted, and animal species that become extinct due to their lost of habitat can never be recreated; thus, it is impossible to regard these as a necessary evil price to pay for a new road, a new mine, or a tourism facility for example. Consequently, critical natural resources must be protected and cannot be regarded as substitutable. Pihl (2007, p. 159) argues that both a too soft and a too hard interpretation of sustainability as formulated above, are problematic: On the one hand, we can assert that natural resources and animal species have a raison d’être in and of themselves and that they cannot be replaced by other investments such as machinery and factories. On the other hand, we can ask what will happen if we do not allow any substitution at all? Creating sustainable development without any substitution entails people leaving this earth exactly as they found it at a certain point in time, without any continued development after that point in time. Why should that point in time in the history of mankind be the most desirable for future generations to perpetuate?

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A soft and hard interpretation of sustainability

We can thus establish that sustainable development is ultimately strictly anthropocentric — it is based on and revolves around mankind and its current and future needs (Bonnedahl 2012). At the same time, the specific focus on needs does not mean what consumers associate with wanting things like “I need a faster WiFi”, or fashion, aesthetics, design, technical innovations, and premium products. In the Brundtland Commission’s discussion, the term need refers to people’s basic needs: like physical needs (food, water, shelter, etc.), social needs (e.g., belonging, affection), and individual needs (e.g., knowledge, self-expression) — these needs are not created by marketers but part of human nature. The Brundtland Commission states: “the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given” (WCED 1987, p. 54). It carries on to say: Living standards that go beyond the basic minimum are sustainable only if consumption standards everywhere have regard for long-term sustainability.

In this respect, the Brundtland Commission makes it clear that distribution-related injustices between different regions and countries of the world, resulting in different types of consumption, are not sustainable. Not until the basic needs of all people have been met is some other type of consumption legitimate, provided that it occurs within what can be regarded as environmentally sustainable. At the same time, the Brundtland Commission emphasized that people’s needs are largely socially and culturally influenced, once again resulting in a vagueness in the applicability of the concept. For instance, in terms of need for food, a Frenchman might prefer to eat bread and cheese, while a Swede would prefer meatballs and potatoes due to cultural differences. In conclusion, we have to accept the fact that the term sustainability incorporates a certain amount of vagueness. However, according to Solow (2000), the term provides comprehensive guidance with regard to showing consideration to coming generations, but this has to be broken down and operationalized by organizations in order to be used concretely. This discussion shows that we have to systematically problematize the contribution of marketing to a sustainable society — and this book is our contribution to moving discussions forward. In what follows, we present the subsequent outline of this book.

Chapter 1 Marketing and sustainability

The book addresses sustainability from various perspectives. In the next chapter, whether there is such a thing as the sustainable consumer is discussed. Various approaches with regard to sustainable consumption are also addressed. In Chapter 3, general factors external to the organization offering sustainable products are considered. The consumption process along with attitude-behavior gaps and how consumers can consume more sustainably are presented. Chapter 4 discusses how firms operate in relation to sustainability and shows how firms can develop competitive advantages by applying sustainable methods, recycling, and adapting their operations. We also introduce the concept of green service which can actually contribute to renewing natural resources while offering the benefits of traditional good consumption. Chapters 5 and 6, respectively, deal with two important parts of communicating endeavors for sustainability. In Chapter 5, the new marketing communications landscape and how it relates to communicating sustainability are discussed. Chapter 6 explores the “branded society” and the various ways in which companies have applied deceptive practices. This becomes increasingly difficult in our transparent world. The theme of Chapter 7 is sustainable business models, including the presentation of product-service systems and a discussion of carsharing. Business model innovation may contribute to sustainability, but again, one has to be critical of company practices. Chapter 8 deals with marketing channels, an area portrayed fundamentally differently when a sustainability perspective is adopted. Not only e-commerce but also the sharing economy, which can be organized in various ways, use (new) marketing channels. Many challenges need to be addressed along the way to establish sustainable distribution channels. Finally, conclusions are provided in Chapter 9. Each chapter provides vignettes — short cases, illustrations or essaylike reflections — which provide readers with additional perspectives and examples on the themes of each chapter.

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Outline of the book

Hugo Guyader (to the right) is a senior lecturer at Linköping University, Sweden. He has published several academic papers in marketing journals. His current research interests resolve around the sharing economy and sustainable consumer behavior. Mikael Ottosson (to the left) is an associate professor at Linköping University, Sweden. His research is focused on sustainable business development and sustainable consumption. He has written several books and articles on these subjects. Anders Parment (in the middle) is a senior lecturer at Stockholm University, Sweden. He has written over fifty books and many articles about various aspects of marketing.

MARKETING & SUSTAINABILITY Why and how sustainability is changing current marketing practices

This book aims to equip business students and marketing practitioners with a thorough understanding of sustainability issues. It uses contemporary cases and useful conceptualizations from recent research to provide a toolbox that help the reader understand how to deliver value to today’s consumers, while considering the well-being of future generations. Marketing & Sustainability raises important questions concerning the impact of (over)consumption, production, distribution, and communication, all key marketing activities, on socioenvironmental challenges in the world — such as climate change and natural resource depletion. Servitization, dematerialization of consumption, the emergence of the circular economy paradigm, the platform-based sharing economy paradigm and the use of sharing schemes and platform-based exchanges of existing market goods are all dealt with in this book, which will make a lot of sense for students, marketers and other professionals who are aware of and striving for sustainable growth. Art.nr 43114

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