The contribution of social-environmental marketing for businesses

Abstract

In the competitive environment that we live in, businesses are increasingly under pressure to seek innovations and/or improvements as to produce goods and services that are ecologically sustainable as well as being socially responsible to see to the renewed demands of consumers-citizens that are social-environmentally aware. In face of this perspective, it is understood that businesses can make good use of social-environmental marketing as a strategic tool to communicate to their stakeholders how sensitive they are to social-environmental issues. Several studies, some of which this work is based on, postulate that when social-environmental marketing tools are used, the business may acquire an image of an organization that is ecologically sustainable and socially responsible, which will place it under a different light than that of its competitors in the same segment. Taking this scenery of opportunities, the aim of this study was to analyze the effects of the application of social-environmental marketing to the global management of businesses, especially in those that are already developing some kind of social responsibility program. To that aim, the authors based their observations on a review of the literature that deals with the social and environmental awareness and the demand for goods and services that are ecologically sound, produced by companies that are trying to put emphasis on social justice and on the balanced use of natural resources still available on the planet.