MARKETING GREEN BUSINESS

Abstract

A large number of businesses have implemented sustainability and corporate responsibility programs in the last five to ten years, mostly in the absence of immediate regulatory or carbon pricing pressure. In this paper, I examine the incentives for companies to engage in these sustainability efforts a part of “business as usual,” and the degree to which programs for marketing these efforts build on “marketing as usual.” The business incentives arise from a “leveraging” of business. environmentally-aware customer segment, and contribution to risk control for brand portfolios in the social media age. In the conventional context of the “four Ps” of marketing . product, price, place, and promotion - key characteristics of green products and services are transparency, reversibility, lifetime, and customer immediacy. I propose that, since risk is a common dimension underlying these key characteristics, a fifth “P”, Probabilities be considered alongside the four Ps. A mini case study of Monsanto.s roll-out of genetically modified (GM) seeds in the mid-1990s is presented, and the marketing problems that were encountered are discussed in the context of GM product characteristics and the “fifth P”. Aqua Bounty.s current effort to introduce genetically modified salmon to U.S. markets is analyzed along the same lines