Perspectives on green marketing and green businesses for sustainable development

• Author: Lazar C. I.
• Pages: 45-52

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series V: Economic Sciences • Vol. 10 (59) No. 1 - 2017

Perspectives on green marketing and

green businesses for sustainable development

Cristian Ionuț LAZĂR1

Abstract: Environmental issues have modified the way businesses compete in the

marketplace, forcing them to adapt their strategic planning process to new legal, social, and

economic requirements. In the long run, an essential advantage of green marketing is that it

allows a company to have access to a market that is continuously developing, having a

competitive advantage compared to other companies. This paper aims to analyse the

meaning of the green marketing concept and to present an overview on the efforts made by

companies worldwide to turn into green businesses.

Key-words: green marketing, green business, sustainable development, environment

protection.

1. Introduction

The consideration of ecology as a relevant variable for the achievement of the

economic goals of an organization has led to the appearance of several concepts in

the literature, like environmental marketing (Calomarde, 2000), green marketing

(Polonsky, 1994) and ecological marketing (Banerjee, 2002). All these three

concepts are perceived as aiming to fulfil the purpose of sustainable development.

The necessity of the development of these concepts is due to the ecological

burden created by economic systems all over the world. According to Majlath

(2008), there are four major factors affecting the environment: the world population,

the standard of living of the population, the consumption structure and the efficiency

of the technologies creating products and services.

Ideally speaking, the concern for a healthy environment is the common point

at which businesses and consumers meet, and also the point in which the latter agree

to pay a higher price for green products or services (Caprita, 2015).

For managers, green marketing involves a series of fundamental changes in

the way they intend to conduct business, also informing and educating costumers, in

an attempt to convince them to adopt new a consumption behaviour.

1 Transilvania University of Braşov, Faculty of Economic Sciences and Business Administration,

cristi.lazar86@gmail.com