Reflective exercise

Full topic and Section # of Green Marketing Introduction Green marketing can be described as greening of the products through thorough understanding of public policy processes along with the alteration of the 4ps, product, price, place and promotion of the market.
Green marketing refers to the ways to promote products by using environmental claims about their systems, policies and processes of the firms that manufacture or sell them.
Firms can green themselves in 3 ways:
1. Redesigning the products
2. Management of system
3. and/or products
Repair – Extending the life of a product
Recondition
Remanufacture- New product is formed from the old one.
Recycle- Products can be converted into raw materials to be reused (Trash can be cash- Marney Jo, Marketing Magazine; 4/11/94, Vol. 99 Issue 14, p27
Reduce
Green Products
do not harm people or animals;
are easy to manufacture, use, and dispose;
do not contain materials obtained from endangered species or threatened environments;
prevents excessive waste in its use or packaging; and
do not believe on irrelevant use of or cruelty to animals.
In this article, written by a marketing practitioner, King, discusses the failure of green marketing.
Failure of Development of Green Marketing
1. Sales orientation
According to King, false marketing is one reason for the downfall of green marketing. Products are not analyzed internally and the environmental impacts of the products are not studied.
2. Compartmentalism
Firms often take notice of the consumers’ needs but they ignore its impact on the environment.
3. Finance Orientation
Companies show interest in short term cost savings e. g. Reduction in packaging or energy savings but are less interested when more money is invested to gain ecological products.
4. Conservatism
King stated that green firms like some other firms emphasized on improving their products and processes rather than inventing new ones.
Green marketing is needed to produce more ecological production and consumption. It will help us to live our lives in our current lifestyles in a modernized manner along with protecting the environment. Green marketing can be achieved by improving the means of production as well as producing new products. The producers as well as the consumers should be provided with environmental literacy to provide and use the products accordingly. Green marketing would be welcomed again if the producers manage the cost and availability of the products and show more responsibility towards consumer needs as well as the environment.
Conclusion
Green marketing is based on the assumption that the producers are responsible to satisfy the consumer as well as to protect the environment. The duty to protect the environment is often neglected by most of the marketing firms.
Environmental problems can be characterized as ethical, legal and economic. Green marketing is a solution to these problems. I believe that the role of marketing is to provide ecological products to adopt a safe lifestyle. It can be made successful by cutting the cost for the consumer to avail better products. All of us should be responsive to social marketing as we are the consumers and we need to convey are needs to the producers to fulfill are desires accordingly.
Work Cited:
1. Marley Jo, Marketing Magazine; 4/11/94, Vol. 99 Issue 14, p27