Chapter-02
Why
Conventional Marketing would not work & Why the New Marketing Paradigm:
Conventional
Marketing
entails developing right Products
that meet consumers needs and wants at affordable Price which is available at right Place and which is communicated to the target
segment with right Promotional
mechanism.
On the other hand, Environmental Marketing refers to develop products that balance
consumers needs for quality, performance, affordable pricing and convenience
with environmental compatibility i.e., minimal impact on the environment. It
also project an image of high quality, including environmental sensitivity,
relating to both a product’s attributes and its manufacturer’s track record for
environmental achievement.
From the above two brief identification, we can
easily distinguish the features
which are making sense of differentiation in between the two marketing
concepts. In the edge of such environmental consumerism, marketers are
accountable to tough new standards. Environmental consumerism represents deep
psychological and socio-logical shifts. Total corporate commitment to greening
one’s product and services is required to be identified as ‘environmentally
compliant’ industry.
In such an attitude to be ‘environmentally
compliant’, a new marketing paradigm called ‘Environmental Marketing’ has
emerged in recent days. The marketers have now started thinking about how best
to cater to consumer needs. They are calling for changes in the basic
assumptions of marketing practices. Environmentally conscious marketers no
longer view consumers as individuals with insatiable appetites for material goods,
but as human beings concerned about the conditions of the world around them,
how they themselves interact with the rest of the nature, and cognizant of how
material goods impact their lives positively as well as negatively short term
as well as long term.
In the past, products were designed in a linear
‘cradle to the grave’fashion, with no regard for the long term impact on
society of their eventual disposal or of no appreciation for the value of the
natural sources they represent. More flexible product offerings that best fit
regional environmentally efficient considerations have replaced a ‘one size
fits all’ system of nationally marketed brands, Innovative products with
radical new designs, even with ‘dematerialized services’ are replacing
resources-intensive products of the past.
The corporations that excel at environmental
marketing are proactive in nature. They define the rules by which they and
their competitors will be judged so as to surpass minimal compliance standards.
The environmentally conscious corporations consider themselves to be
interdependent like nature’s processes. To manage environmental issues
throughout the value chain, the eco-efficient corporations ally with corporate
environmental stakeholders in cooperative, positive alliances, and work hand to
hand with suppliers and retailers. These companies with a long term orientation
manage with a double bottom line- one bottom line for profit and the other one
reflecting their contributions to society.
Strategies
for the Success of Environmental Marketing:
Experts working in the arena of Environmental
Marketing are of the opinion that the marketers or the companies should adopt
some strategies for attaining success in environment marketing. Strategies are
noted below:
A) The best quality
product.
B) Interactive
Marketing Program.
C) Profits for the
planet program.
D) Eco-efficient
design/Green by design of the product.
E) Minimisation of the
direct environmental impact.
F) Use of sustainable
sources of raw materials.
G) Source reduced
products and packaging.
H) Conservation of
natural resources, habitats &endangered species.
I) Use of Recycled
Content.
J) Making products
energy-efficient.
K) Maximisation of
Consumer and environmental safety.
L) Making products and
packaging reusable and refillable.
M) Designing products
for remanufacturing, recycling and repair.
N) Making products safe
for disposal.
O) Making products and
packaging compostable.
P) Making the products
sustainable and eco-efficient.
Above all of the strategies, some prioritize
strategies are discussed below in briefly manner.
#
Eco-efficient design/Green by design of the product:
To promote environmental marketing, the marketers/company
should design their product in such a way that it is eco-efficient or
environmental friendly.
The issues relating to environmental product which
span every phase of a products life cycle, are varied and complex and also
include a plethora of sub-issues noted below:
a) Conservation of
natural resources such as water and land.
b) Energy efficiency.
c) Protection of
natural habitats and endangered species.
d) Upgrading products,
packaging to minimize environmental impact.
It may so happen that an expected environmental
benefit may actually result in litter or no added value to environment. For
instance, Plastic trash bags which are technically designed to disintegrate in
the presence of sunlight may not degrade when buried in a landfill.CPC, the
renowned cartoon manufacturing unit found that converting to recycled cartoon
material would actually add about 20% to the width of their packaging material.
This would at least partially offset savings to the environment, considering
the added energy needed to ship new boxes.
In view of such scenario as stated above and
also to prevent backlash from consumers, environmental groups and other stakeholders,
all of whom may be quick to point out the shortcomings of products and
packaging touted as green, a thorough approach to ‘Greening’ is required. A
highly effective tool called ‘Life Cycle Inventory (LCI)’may be the appropriate
strategy to make the product ‘Green by design’.
A LCI, the first step in conducting a full life
cycle analysis of product, is a process that quantifies the use of energy,
resources and emissions to the environment associated with a product throughout
its life cycle. It accounts for the following environmental impact issues:
a) Raw-material
procurement.
b) Manufacturing and
production.
c) Packaging.
d) Distribution.
e) In-use
characteristics straight through the after-use and disposal.
For instance, a LCI of Cotton versus Disposable
diapers would quantify the amount of pesticides and water used to grow cotton,
as well as the water and energy needed to manufacture the diapers and transport
them to stores and homes. Finally, it would consider the amount of water and
energy used to launder the cloth diapers. A LCI of diposable diapers would take
into account the environmental burdens of extraction and refining the petroleum
required to produce the plastic backsheets.It would quantify the energy used in
manufacturing and transportation, as well as the amount of solid waste
eventually set to landfills.
The LCI strategy to make the product green was
developed initially during the 1970s to help reduce the amount of energy used
for developing and distributing products. Several organizations have performed
LCI in a wide range of industries
including paper, paperboard, glass, steel,
aluminum, plastic beverage containers and delivery systems, building materials
and transportation services.
The LCI strategy is extremely useful for the
following reasons:
a) Comparing the costs
associated with energy and resource usage and environmental emissions
associated with existing products and their alternatives.
b) Identifying
significant areas for reducing energy use and water.
From the above discussions, we may summarise
about LCI is that, LCI must be augmented with a holistic evaluation of a product’s
total environmental impact. Renewable or sustainable resource use, habitat
destruction, biodiversity depletion.odours, visual pollution, noise pollutions,
toxicity, biodegradability, and other issues that are of concern to
environmentalists and consumers.
# Use of
Recycled Content:
Recycling is useful in many ways which are
noted below:
a) It reduces pollution
and conserves natural resources.
b) It conserves energy.
c) It can be cost
competitive with land filling and incineration if seriously designed and implemented.
d) It creates jobs and
reduces cost in manufacturing sectors.
e) It melts out the guilts
associated with garbage thrown out of home.
With the help of innovative technologies, the
use of recycled contents in consumer products has skyrocketed in the last
decade. Products that formerly boasted 10% recycled content may now incorporate
as much as 100% post-consumer content. In the past, recycled content was
limited mostly to paper, glass, metals and some plastic laundry bottles. At
present recycled content belongs to entire array of high quality products
including clothing, furnitures, paint, motor oil and so on.
For instance, in the year of 1994, WELLMAN Inc,
one of the largest recycler of PET soda bottles manufactured Fortel Eco Spun TM
fiber from 100% recycled soda bottles. The fiber is sold to mills that turn it
into high quality fabrics. Compare to Virgin Polyester, the production of
EcoSpun use 60% less plastic, emits less carbon dioxide and less sulpher dioxide,
and creates fewer hazardous air pollutants than the production of virgin
polyster.
Another example may be noted here such as
recycling of Used Motor Oil. Used motor oil seep through landfills and sewers,
contaminate local waterways with toxins. The Safety Klean Company in USA
installed collection network first to collect those and following the
innovative refining process, the company converts the used motor oil into new
lube oil and other usable products like volatile solvents, heavy distillation
residue, water etc.
#
Products Safe disposal:
For the promotion of environmental-friendly
marketing, the company should manufacture products in such a way that it is
safe for disposal after use. In other words, the products are such that their
disposal after use does not exert any undesirable impact upon environment.
For instance, it is usually held that most
cleaning products are biodegradable. The ingredients break down quickly and
harmlessly after they go down through drainage. But in practice, not all
ingredients are biodegradable. We know that one of the common ingredients in
detergent is phosphates. The phosphates are nutrients readily taken up by water
plants. But when excessive get into rivers and lakes, they cause algae blooms,
robbing the water of oxygen, blocking the sunlight and ultimately killing fish
and other marine life.
Another problem is Chlorine. Although it breaks
down, it can react in a harmful way with organic compounds.
# To
maximize Consumer and Environmental Safety:
Products should be produced and marketed in
such a way that it maximizes consumer and environmental safety.
Empirical evidence shows some causes of
illness/various sicknesses due to influence of consumer products made from synthetic.
It is found that ‘formaldehyde’ in wood paneling causes wheezing, Organic gases
in Carpeting causes lever damage,Perchloroethyleue used to dry clean clothing
causes headache, and Volatile Organic Compounds(VOC) in cleaning product causes
nausea. Much illness can be traced to indoor pollution which is always higher
than any of us.
Consumers concern about product safety
translates into opportunities for alternative home construction and cleaning
products.
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