International Journal of Managerial Studies and Research (IJMSR)
Volume 3, Issue 7, July 2015, PP 142-147
ISSN 2349-0330 (Print) & ISSN 2349-0349 (Online)
www.arcjournals.org
©ARC Page 142
Green Marketing: Challenges and Ways to Green Your Business
Manjeet Sharma
Sonipat, India
manjeetsharma210@gmail.com
Manender Singh
Research Scholar, Gurgaon, India
manindersingh10190@gmail.com
Abstract: Green marketing is a phenomenon which has developed particular important in the modern market.
It is a vital constituent of the holistic marketing concept today. It is particularly applicable to those businesses
that are directly dependent on the physical environment. Changes in the physical environment may pose a threat
to all the concerned industries. Consequently new types of products were created, called "green" products,
which would cause less damage to the environment. Thus green marketing plays an important role to promote
the idea of environmental protection and sustainable development both in the minds of the customer and the
marketers.
Today People around the world are becoming more aware of the environmental stresses. Social movements,
media are also nowadays enhancing consumer’s attention towards the environmental effects a product may
have. To cope with these changes in the society, marketers have adopted green marketing concept in order to
sustain in the market. This paper will attempt to introduce the concept of green marketing; examine some
reasons that make the organizations interested to adopt green marketing philosophy. This paper also makes an
assessment of the strategies of green marketing and challenges of green marketing. Through this paper, the
researcher also intended to draw the attention of modern customer and marketers towards Green Products.
Keywords: Green Marketing, Challenges, strategy etc.
1. INTRODUCTION
The term Green Marketing also known as environmental marketing and ecological marketing
was came into force in the late 1980s and early 1990s.It was begun from Europe in the early 1980
when some products were identified to be harmful for environment. As a result, new “green” products
were introduced that were less damaging to the environment. In 1975, the first workshop on
"Ecological Marketing" was held by the American Marketing Association (AMA). As a result the first
book on green marketing entitled "Ecological Marketing" was introduced. In India green marketing
was started in late 1990s. Government, manufacturer are became aware to adopt the green marketing.
Government is adopted the policy to save the earth and manufacturer adopted the policy to take
sustainable competitive advantage from the green marketing.
The government of India launched an Eco-mark Scheme in 1991 to increase consumer awareness in
respect of environment friendly products. The aim of the scheme is to encourage the customers to
purchase those products which have less harmful environmental impact. According to Peattie (2001),
the evolution of green marketing has three phases. First phase was termed as "Ecological" green
marketing. During this period all marketing activities were concerned to help environment problems
and provide remedies for environmental problems. Second phase was "Environmental" green
marketing. During this phase the focus shifted on clean technology that involved designing of
innovative new products, which take care of pollution and waste issues. Third phase was
"Sustainable" green marketing. It came into prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000.
Green marketing refers to the process of selling products and services based on their environmental
benefits. Such a product or service may be environmentally friendly in it or produced and packaged in
an environmentally friendly way. Green marketing includes a broad range of activities like product
modification, changing the production process, modified advertising, change in packaging, etc., aimed
at reducing the detrimental impact of products and their consumption and disposal on the
environment. Companies all over the world are striving to reduce the impact of products and services
on the climate and other environmental parameters. Marketers are taking the cue and are going green.
According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), "Green marketing is the marketing of
products that are presumed to be environmentally safe, involves developing and promoting products