Sustainability marketing - Frank–Martin Belz

Whether it is the impact of climate change, helping farmers in poor countries through Fair Trade, or finding ways to keep discarded products out of landfills, sustainability issues are the biggest challenges facing businesses, governments and consumers. The recent economic downturn demonstrated that our existing ways of living and of doing business are economically, as well as environmentally, unsustainable. Getting back to ‘ business as usual ’ and an economy based on debt–fuelled overconsumption will only endanger our future welfare. What is urgently needed is for a sustainability orientation to become the ‘ new mainstream ’ in how we think about business and how we produce, consume and market goods and services. Sustainability Marketing: A Global Perspective provides a new sustainability–oriented vision of marketing for the twenty–first century. It has a consumer marketing focus with an emphasis on integrating sustainability principles into both marketing theory and the practical decision making of marketing managers. The book shows how the complexities of sustainability issues can be integrated into marketing decisions through a systematic step–by–step approach. The steps involve an analysis of socio–environmental priorities to complement conventional consumer research; an integration of social, ethical and environmental values into marketing strategy development; a new consumer–oriented sustainability marketing mix to replace the outmoded and producer–oriented ‘ 4 Ps ’; and finally an analysis of how marketing can go beyond responding to social change to contribute to a transformation to a more sustainable society. Without taking such steps, marketing will continue to drive global crises linked to climate change, poverty, food shortages, oil depletion and species extinction, instead of helping to tackle them. The book is ideally suited to both students and practitioners at many different levels and disciplines including marketing, business and sustainability or environmental management. A comprehensive package of supplementary materials is available at www.wileyeurope.com/college/belz . All chapters include learning objectives, discussion questions, and illustrative cases, simple examples and research data from many different countries. The authors have between them more than 36 years of research experience and many years of experience teaching sustainability marketing concepts in the classroom Frank–Martin Belz is Professor at the Technische Universitt Mnchen (TUM Business School). Ken Peattie is Professor at Cardiff Business School where he is also the Director of the ESRC Research Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS).