When people ask us what we're working on these days, and we say "Sustainable marketing," they tend to look at us with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. Their most common responses run along the lines of, "Huh?" or "Isn't that an oxymoron?"
We can forgive them for that. In a world awakening to global ecological challenges such as climate change, water shortages, pervasive environmental toxins and declining ecosystems, marketing commonly has been criticized as one of the root problems. Excessive consumption, critics say, is the culprit, and marketing is the machine that drives it. In part they are correct. Since the rise of post-World War II Madison Avenue, marketing has been employed primarily in the service of traditional economics, driving constantly increasing demand for newer and better products and lifestyles with little or no concern for the consequences to the natural systems that sustain life.
How do we answer such criticism? Easily. We first point out that marketing, in theory and practice, is merely a set of tools. Nothing about it is inherently destructive. As the interface between production and consumption it is, in fact, the primary system by which we humans meet our most basic needs. Marketing puts food on our tables and clothes on our backs. It allows us to be productive and creative and to be rewarded for our efforts. Sustainable marketing allows us to do these things without compromising the ability of others, now and in future generations, to do the same.
At its best, marketing serves, informs and inspires us. It helps us to solve problems, to express ourselves and to enrich our experiences. Sustainable marketing does all of this, but without converting precious natural resources in to piles of waste. Sustainable marketing designs, creates and distributes quality products and services that people want. It communicates the benefits of those products honestly and transparently. It sells them for a price that provides fair compensation for everyone in the value chain. And it provides the mechanisms for recapturing and reusing all the waste materials from production, consumption and disposition.
Marketing can be done both sustainably and profitably, and sustainable marketing can be a powerful force for improving human life and rebuilding the natural systems that make a quality life possible.
