MKT600 - Sustainable & Socially Responsible Marketing Ethics

This report provides an overview of sustainable and socially responsible marketing, highlighting the importance of integrating environmental, social, and economic considerations into marketing practices. It distinguishes between sustainable marketing, which aims for long-term organizational growth through sustainable practices, and socially responsible marketing, which focuses on activities that benefit society as a whole. The report details the ethical issues in socially responsible marketing, including deceptive pricing, promotion, and packaging, as well as environmental concerns such as resource wastage and non-compliance with green marketing. It also provides examples of sustainable practices implemented by organizations, such as Emirates Airline's recycling initiatives and the use of renewable energy resources. The report emphasizes the importance of honesty, transparency, accountability, responsibility, and fairness in ethical marketing, alongside the need for collaboration, training, and capacity building to address environmental challenges.

Sustainable
marketing

Sustainable marketing
 It includes marketing aims for long term
growth of an organization through
sustainable practices.
 It takes care of fundamental issues
such as environment, social and
economical.
 It involves optimization of both material
and financial resources thereby
curtailing the wastage generated in the
marketing process (Turker, 2018).
 It not only improves better allocation of
resources but also increases the profit
earnings.

Socially responsible marketing
 It involves the marketing process which
undertakes its activities in the best interests
of the society as a whole.
 It is also referred as ethical corporate
marketing and sometimes green marketing.
 It aims to understand the impact that a
product or service offered has on the society
and environment.
 This is a part of corporate social
responsibility.
 It aims at educating the customers correctly
about the characteristics of the product
thereby building valuable relationship with its
customers.

Ethics in SRM
 Honesty- it must be the foremost
principle of ethical marketing in SRM
 Transparency-The procedure of
marketing should be transparent and
intend to portray the right message.
 Accountability-The professionals should
be accountable while conducting
marketing.
 Responsibility – The professionals
involved should be equally responsible
 Fairness- The marketing should be fair
without any biases (Pigors &
Rockenbach, 2016).

Ethical issues in SRM
 Deceptive pricing- Price distortion is a common
phenomenon while dealing with customers.
 Deceptive promotion- often marketing professionals
adopt unethical practices like using child labor, derogatory
representation of women, sexual biases while promoting a
product or service (Ko, Hwang & Kim, 2013).
 Deceptive packaging- The use of symbols, items and
other marks used in the packaging which is not been used
in the product.

Environmental issues of SRM
 Excessive wastage of resources
 Use of substances which directly
deplete the environment.
 Non-compliance to green marketing.
 Not sensitive to ecological health
while conducting marketing strategies.
 No inclusive policies in marketing
procedure to ensure welfare of both
flora and fauna which forms a vital
part of environment (Ottman, 2017).
 Use of non biodegradable items.

Sustainable practices in
marketing Collaboration with different
organizations dealing with reuse and
recycle of resources.
 Encouraging clean and hygiene work
environment.
 Training of the employees to inculcate
greener methods of marketing.
 Usage and promoting eco-friendly
concept in the products.
 Capacity building meet the challenges of
environmental concerns.
 Highlighting the major public and socials
issues.

Examples of sustainable
marketing Many organizations for instance in the
airline industry- Emirates airline has been
recycling most of its wastage where a
dedicated recycle team has been dealing
with the environmental wastes.
 Organizations have using renewable
energy resources like solar energy for
powering the huge building.
 Using of eco-friendly products and
promoting reuse and recycle.
 In built technologies for waste disposal and
treatment.

References
 Turker, D. (2018). Socially Responsible Marketing. In Managing Social
Responsibility (pp. 99-114). Springer, Cham.
 Ko, E., Hwang, Y. K., & Kim, E. Y. (2013). Green marketing'functions in building
corporate image in the retail setting. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1709-
1715.
 Ottman, J. (2017). The new rules of green marketing: Strategies, tools, and
inspiration for sustainable branding. Routledge.
 Pigors, M., & Rockenbach, B. (2016). Consumer social responsibility. Management
Science, 62(11), 3123-3137.