Can Green Marketing be used as a tool for Sustainable Growth?: A Study Performed on Consumers in India- An Emerging Economy

Abstract

Sustainable development is the form of development which aims at sustainable consumption and sustainable economic growth and tries to protect the environment. The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and socio-political sustainability. Realizing the importance of people’s concern for a healthy environment to live and preferring environmental friendly products and services to consume, marketers these days are trying to capitalize on the same to ensure sustainable growth and using these concepts in designing their strategies. Green marketing is one of such strategies which marketers are using these days as a key strategy for sustainable development. Just a decade ago, the term green marketing or green business strategy evoked visions of fringe environmentalism and adding cost to existing normal goods. Most of the industries had the perception that consumers are willing to buy products at best competitive prices and associate no value for environmentally friendly products. They felt that the pressure for making business environment green and behaving in a more responsible manner especially comes fromGovernment and its legislations and consumers have nothing to do with it. But, now that old perception of companies is changing, they have started realizing the changes in consumer perceptions and their behavior. Therefore, these days’ concepts of green marketing are taking shape as one of the key business strategies of the companies for gaining the competitive advantage, ensuring sustainable consumption of their products in the markets and enjoying sustainable development in future. Marketers must realize now that green marketing is not purely altruistic it can be a profitable endeavour for sustainable growth. It is only since 1990’s that the researchers have started academically analyzing consumers and industry attitude towards green marketing. Most of the studies on green marketing philosophy, sustainable consumption and sustainable development are done in developed countries but such studies however, remain conspicuously missing in the context of emerging economies like India. This research is a step to fill up this gap. The findings of the study demonstrate that these days’ people are having high concern about environmental protection and are willing to consume those products which are environmentally friendly i.e. green in nature and the companies who offer green products will definitely enjoy a competitive advantage over their competitors as people have a positive attitude for green products. Findings of the study support the view of the authors that green marketing can definitely be used as a tool for sustainable growth.