Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development

Strategies, Practices and Business Models

Jitendra K. Das, Shallini Taneja, Hitesh Arora, Jitendra K. Das, Shallini Taneja, Hitesh Arora

• Verlag: Routledge India
• Jahr: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000395860
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Economics
• Thema: Sustainable Development

This book critically analyzes the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in achieving sustainable development in emerging economies. It brings together recent developments, effective frameworks, business models, and strategies adopted by companies and looks at how they contribute to sustainable business growth. The volume discusses diverse themes such as green marketing for promoting sustainable development; digitization and sustainability concerns; communication strategies for CSR; ethical standards in Indian advertising; microfinance as an instrument for achieving sustainable development; the role of CSR in the Skill India initiative; and CSR activities of Indian listed companies. It also provides solutions to challenges in achieving sustainable development goals at local and global levels.

Drawing on in-depth case studies, the book will be an essential read for corporate professionals, students, and researchers of CSR, management studies, development studies, business studies, economics, environmental studies, green marketing, and sociology. It will also be relevant for policy makers, NGOs, public and private sector corporations, and consultants in sustainability reporting, business ethics, and sustainable development.

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Indian corporates leveraging green marketing to promote CSR and sustainable development

Implications and challenges

Geeta Sachdeva

Introduction

Banyte et al. (2010) have studied green marketing as a development tool for the formation of ideas in corporate social responsibility. It has been argued that

the constantly changing orientations of consumers regarding environmental protection, the ecosystem, social responsibilities, and the transformation of consumption habits together force enterprises to look for new and alternative ways wherein the main principles of CSR would be integrated with the marketing strategies.

This indicates that green marketing has evolved as a great tool in executing the CSR practices of any enterprise in this modern era. In this way, enterprises, to completely satisfy the needs of consumers, tend to analyze green marketing priorities, which would ultimately reflect the essential ideas of CSR. These types of green marketing activities seek to make the existence of the firms acceptable and useful for both the environment and society.

Kärnä et al. (2003) have investigated the CSR aspects in the planning of environmental marketing and have interpreted that active green marketers are the most efficient in executing green marketing, willingly seeking competitive advantage for their firms by means of environmentally friendly initiatives.

Competitive advantage of an organization refers to its “capability to get constant profits over opposing companies in the marketplace by supplying a service which cannot be matched simply.” Most of the organizations’ competitive advantage is discussed by the author Michael Porter in his work on competitive advantage and the forces of competition. He recognized adherence to a general strategy as well as cost, variation, or focus to get competitive advantage (Porter and Van der Linde, 1995).

The approach of low cost includes offering a product or service at a comparatively low-cost price by dropping an organization’s cost. The strategy of differentiation involves offering an exclusive product that could obviously be differentiated from the prevailing products in the industry. The emphasis of strategy is meant at directing a selected group of customers, whose needs are being exclusively satisfied by purchase of a product. Strategy might comprise both a cost element and differentiation features. This type of strategy has stimulated much interest in the corporate world. It can be concluded that strategy is designed to be responsive to consumer needs. (Porter and Van der Linde, 1995).

Crane (2000) stated that green marketing ensures that the marketing activities of organizations are directed to curtail environmental dangers. Moreover, it also fortifies a positive relationship with customers who take a keen interest in the protection of the environment.

Nowadays, companies have started to acknowledge the worth of green marketing as a welcome step to catering to the needs of their customers. There is a paradigm shift in the number of organizations’ strategies wherein the organizations are changing its methods to reach out to the customers. Moreover, firms use green marketing as a competitive strategy to overcome the competition in the market. Therefore, it can be interpreted that green marketing is not only associated with concerns regarding ecology but is also used to gain competitive advantage in the market.

Green marketing includes many activities, such as counting product variations, variations in the production procedure, packing changes, as well as altering publicity materials. However, describing green marketing is not an easy job where numerous senses interconnect and oppose each other; an instance of this would be the presence of changing social, ecological, and retail definitions associated with this term.

Pride and Ferrell (1993) defined green marketing, also otherwise identified as environmental marketing and sustainable marketing, as a firm’s efforts to design, endorse, price, and distribute products that would not damage the environment. Polonsky and Rosenberger (2000) describe green marketing as all actions intended to produce and enable any exchanges proposed to gratify human requirements or wants, such that the gratification of these wants and desires occurs, with negligible harmful effect on the natural environment.

Evolution and background

While analyzing green marketing priorities within the concept of CSR, four marketing activities fulfil the expectations of CSR, which are as follows: First, recognizing and satisfying the expectations of green consumers; second, predicting the reaction of green consumers towards green marketing decisions; third, maintaining the trust of green consumers in eco-friendly products; and last but not the least, maintaining the efficiency of promotion means with respect to the decision making of the green consumers (Banyte et al., 2010).

The development of green marketing and the green consumer movement is “perhaps the biggest opportunity for enterprise and invention the industrial world has ever seen” (Cairncross, 1992). The green consumer is supposed to be more educated and richer in comparison to the average consumer. Laroche et al. (2001) established that there is a category of consumers, which exceeds socio-economic borders and is keen to pay for the moral credentials. In this upsurge in the ecological awareness amongst a diverse customer profile, there have been exertions commenced by organizations to “go green” by offering the notion of corporate environmentalism (Banerjee, 2003). A significant limitation to the expansion of green products is the absence of consumer trust and the lack of information (Cervellon et al., 2010).

As per Doaee et al. (2006), green marketing is a means to create sustainable competition while considering social responsibility. More precisely, green marketing talks about different motives; its development includes three areas—ecological green marketing area, environmental area, and sustainability area—as well as the strategies and actions essential to implement this concept.

In their study, Zuhairah and Noor (2015) found that, despite the readiness of customers to use more ecologically friendly products, research shows that less attention has been paid to green marketing. Amongst the ecological factors of green innovation, marketing and promotion of the green products if, considered appropriately, may have a positive impact on business performance.

Menck and Filho (2014) established that green marketing and a commitment to social responsibility can be a strategic tool. In addition, green marketing can be adapted to decrease company costs and obtain a competitive advantage. The company must look for moral reasons for observing social issues and finally come to the conclusion that social activities are a foundation of competitive advantage.

Green marketing approaches carry certain paybacks to a firm that could be used to gain strategic advantage. The paybacks have been found in the lowered cost of production as a green production procedure will bring down the costs, leading to reduced waste, reduced use of raw materials, and reduced energy costs. An important decrease in cost will increase the revenues of firms (Baker, 1999).

The firm gains brand loyalty. Researchers have verified that consumers attach less significance to brand loyalty in the case of products that convey inherent benefits. A marvelous connection between green products and consumers develops. Price sensitivity will not be an issue for consumers because of increased brand loyalty. Customers will be willing to purchase the products even if the price of the products is relatively high (Baker, 1999).

Green products create a good image for brands and the company. Going green might lead to an upsurge in consumer interest, and the firm might gain recognition amongst the population at large. Even customers who do not use the products of an organization might shift their loyalty. Firms producing green products will gain acceptance from regulators and the public at large will resort to them actively. It will serve as a unique selling proposition, so that a company will stand out against its competition (Baker, 1999).

The production and sale of green products leads to pleasant company environs with a reduction in disordered corporate activities. It improves and strengthens the working atmosphere. Since the procedure of developing a green marketing strategy includes an all-inclusive approach to bring into line all the functions of the business, a strategic resemblance could be reached. Along with this, the strategy formulation will lead to healthier associations with employees, as their contribution is sought. Personnel commitment will rise, and, as a result, there will be a shared understanding amongst diverse stakeholders of a firm (Zintom and Frederick, 2001).

A company will continue to benefit if it presents a resourceful environmental product to the market as customers could be enticed from prevailing goods in the marketplace. A win-win situation can be the result for organizations if a green marketing strategy is adopted in the procedure. As a result, customers’ gratification rises as customers will get quality products at reasonable prices. It will lead to the inclusive well-being of an economy and a sustainable development would result from green marketing inventiveness (Baker, 1999).

Therefore, from the previously discussed background, it can be interpreted that companies use green marketing as a sustainable and strategic approach, not only from the cost point of view but also to gain customer loyalty, build companies’ image in the market, and overcome competition by gaining competitive advantage.

The chapter revolves around these broad objectives of the study:

• To discuss green marketing strategies and the green marketing mix
• To discuss the initiatives taken by the Indian government and various organizations to implement green marketing in India
• To discuss the problems in implementing green marketing in India

Green marketing: Strategies, mix, initiatives, and problems

The green marketing strategy includes two indispensable features: Organizations will have to produce a product that will gratify customers’ needs reasonably with the least negative effect on the environment, while enabling their customers to view it as a high-quality product that emphasizes the company’s desire to protect the environment (Menon and Menon, 1997).

Thus, qualitative change in the relationship between customers and companies can be brought about if companies adopt a green marketing strategy. The functional and emotional benefits of the goods and services need to be emphasized while satiating consumer needs using this strategy, since most ecological apprehensions include the spiritual desires of customers. A green marketing strategy differs from a traditional marketing strategy because it focuses on a value-based, long-term oriented, and unified approach.

According to Grant (2007), five important points help build an effective green marketing strategy. The theory of five I’s is a red line that firms must follow to avoid errors and greenwashing.

1 Intuitive—making improved options available and easy to hold: This means making green products or services seem normal. Enjoying life in a sustainable way seems too hard and difficult for most people. Marketers have to make it instinctive. They need more ideas, such as organic products (Grant, 2007).

2 Integrative—connecting commerce, technology, social effect, and ecology: The key idea is sustainability, by associating economic development with social and environmental development. It is also a move for commercial marketing, which has not in the past deliberated on green and social purposes, except as a means to a commercial end (Grant, 2007).

3 Innovative—creative novel products and new lifestyles: Most people are saying that green innovation and entrepreneurship in the following 20 years would be like the information and technology space over the last 20 years. For example, people have begun to use the term g-commerce, for green e-commerce. With the Internet, it is now possible to collaborate in design, build communities, and so on (Grant, 2007).

4 Inviting—a positive option, not a compulsion: Green now is partially a design challenge. A green product is improved, more effectual, long-lasting, healthy, reasonable, etc. However, firms are also required to manage the culture of green lifestyles, generate novel mythologies and codes, which are ideal, thrilling, and fun, instead of appearing like an unfriendly remedy to avoid a dystopia (Grant, 2007).

5 Informed—absence of information is disturbing people’s behaviour: Green marketing is more about learning and contribution. There is an upheaval going on in health, enduring learning, and citizenship because of the innovative availability of information (Grant, 2007).

Green marketing mix

Recognizing the target consumer would help marketers to identify whether “greenness” is the correct marketing feature and how it should be combined into the marketing mix. Each organization has its own marketing mix. Some organizations follow the 4 P’s and others follow the 7 P’s of the marketing mix. The 4 P’s of green marketing are the same as those of conventional marketing, but the dare before marketers is to use the 4 P’s inventively if they want to embrace the policy of green marketing.

• Green product: Green products are usually durable, non-toxic, made from reused materials, or negligibly packaged (Ottman, 1997). Green-based product strategies encompass any or an amalgamation of recycling, lessening of packaging materials, re-consumption, using sustainable raw materials, making more long-lasting products, designing products that are repairable, making products that are harmless for dumping, making compost...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Indian corporates leveraging green marketing to promote CSR and sustainable development: implications and challenges
• 2 Sustainable development and business research: where we are and where we might go
• 3 Sustainability concerns, digitalization, and globalization: impact on marketing thought and practice
• 4 Impact of long-term CSR support
• 5 CSR initiatives by small and medium enterprises in the National Capital Region of India
• 6 Regulating the invisible hand: mandatory CSR in Mauritius
• 7 The obligation versus opportunity framework for corporate social responsibility implementation
• 8 Operations research and its role in environmental management: a review
• 9 The global reporting initiatives, business intelligence, and corporate sustainability: an analysis of Indian enterprise in the energy sector
• 10 CSR and its communication in multinational companies in India and the UK: dimensions and relationships
• 11 Creating a watchdog culture for ethical standards in Indian advertising
• 12 The role of CSR in skilling India: the sustainability of interventions by pharmaceutical companies
• 13 Microfinance as an instrument for achieving sustainable development: a research agenda
• 14 Leveraging social media to amplify CSR programmes
• 15 Building the Master Training programme: a case study
• 16 Transforming lives through education: a CSR case study of SRF foundation
• 17 Educating minds to empower the future: Capgemini
• Index