A framework for sustainable marketing

Abstract

This article examines how sustainable marketing could be achieved through the contribution of three existing marketing sub-disciplines; green marketing, social marketing and critical marketing. Green marketing facilitates the development and marketing of more sustainable products and services while introducing sustainability efforts into the core of the marketing process and business practice. Social marketing involves using the power of marketing to encourage sustainable behaviour among individuals, businesses and decision makers while also assessing the impact of current commercial marketing on sustainability. This links into the critical marketing paradigm which entails analyses of marketing theory, principles and techniques using a critical theory based approach. This analysis can help to guide regulation and control, development of marketing theory and practice, and to challenge the dominant institutions associated with marketing and the capitalist system, encouraging a marketing system in which sustainability is a key goal. The article concludes by offering a framework for sustainable marketing and a way forward for how this might be achieved.