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Environmental Marketing: a tool to improve competitiveness

• Artigo

Marketing ambiental: uma ferramenta para aumentar a competitividade • Ricardo Arturo Vega-Rodríguez * • Sandra Rojas **

Abstract: This article revises environmental marketing as a tool that helps organizations to develop competitive advantages. First, the main concepts about environmental marketing, including its definition, position in the field of marketing and the role that it can play in the enterprises are explained. A model of strategic environmental marketing planning is presented, covering all the phases to be included in this process. Then, two models of antecedents and consequences of the environmental marketing are explained. In these models, there are some common variables about both aspects. In the case of antecedents, the determinant variables proposed are the values and attitudes of the consumers, the competitive and regulatory intensities, the environmentalism of the managers, and the visualization of the green marketing as a business opportunity. Regarding the consequences, they can be divided in consumer and financial outcomes. Finally, some concluding remarks and further research are proposed. Keywords: environmental marketing, corporate environmentalism, environmental orientation, green markets, green consumers, competitive advantages.

* Ricardo Arturo Vega-Rodríguez é Químico Farmacêutico (U. Nacional, 1986). Programa de formacão gerencial (U. de los Andes, 1997). Mestre em Administração (U. Nacional, 2008). Docente de Mercado no Politécnico Grancolombiano por cinco anos. 20 anos de experiência na industria farmacêutica nas áreas de mercadeo e vendas da Bayer, Johnson&Johnson, Alcon e Dermaplástica desempenhando cargos relacionados com planejamento estratégico de mercado, gestão de clientes e com responsabilidades gerenciais em diversas áreas. ** Sandra Rojas é Doutora em Ciências Administrativas pelo Instituto Politécnico Nacional e Mestre em Administração pela Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Professora da graduação, da pósgraduação e diretora do Departamento de Investigação, Desenvolvimento e Inovação da Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano.

ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING: A TOOL TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS

Introduction The second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st have brought, along with them, social and cultural changes worldwide; one of which has been the raising of collective awareness about the changes that have occurred in our biosphere due to the fast growing industrial and economic development (Klassen & McLaughlin, 1996; Maldonado, Rivas, Molina, & Flores, 2007; Handfield, Sroufe, & Walton, 2005). This situation has created a set of externalities (Gould, 1972) generated by people, industries and even governments, causing an impact in local, national, and regional communities around the world because contamination knows no geographic or physical boundaries. Due to the effect that industrial and human activities have over the environment, a change of attitude towards environmental management has sensitized governments, companies and people about their responsibility to control their actions in order to avoid more damage on the habitat. It has impelled companies to incorporate this component in their business and marketing strategies with the same, and in some cases, more importance than the traditional aspects contemplated in those plans (Prakash, 2002). One of the results of this situation has been the conformation of interest groups such as environmental associations (For example Greenpeace, WWF, etc.) that fight for the defense of the environment and the preservation of the planet for future generations (Oxley &

Hunton-Clarke, 2003). These groups have influenced individual behavior and attitude to the level of changing people’s habits in their roles as consumers; people have taken a stand about the efforts made by companies to protect the environment as well as for the incorporation of safe environmental practices within their production and management processes (Prakash, 2002). This issue has incorporated environmental management into the administrative sciences field; organizations have developed management and social strategies in order to take responsibility over the natural resources they use, the industrial waste activities produced and the impact their products have on the environment after use. This represents an important development in the investigative field of environmental management (Leonidou & Leonidou, 2011; Chamorro, Rubio, & Miranda, 2009). Even the ISO has acknowledged these developments by incorporating the ISO 14000 standards that certify organizations in their environmental management practices (Pérez & Bejarano, 2008). The businesses have also glimpsed at the other side of the issue by not only perceiving environmental efforts like an administrative and economic burden but as a market opportunity that can be competitively supplied by creating new range and lines of products that can be considered environmentally friendly and will open the doors to the ecological and green markets (Chamorro & Bañegil, 2006; Pujari, Wright, & Peattie, 2003). This tendency has given marketing practices a new use, such as the gen-

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eration of environmental responsible habits in people (Chamorro, 2001, pp. 3-4) and the development in the social marketing field incorporating the environmental components that allow the companies to be more competitive within the corporative and marketing strategies (Murillo, Garcés, & Rivera, 2008; Russo & Fouts, 1997; Simpson, Taylor, & Barker, 2004) and taking full advantage of this new consumer tendency (Maldonado & Rivas, 2010, pp. 360-2; Maldonado, Rivas, Molina, & Flores, 2007, pp. 21-2). But in the case of environmental marketing, there is not a point of reference like the ISO 14000 standards, which ensure that fundamental parameters and success factors in the application of environmental marketing are being complied with, making difficult the creation of easy usable benchmarks. In the past years, environmental marketing has become an area of fast development within the theory and practice of environmental management. This happens because environmentally responsible consumers need to be better known in order to influence on their ecological behaviors and shopping habits by taking strategic advantage of the commercial opportunities within this growing group of consumers (Foster & Green, 2000). That is why practical and investigative efforts have been made in different geographical areas to promote environmental management models inside consumer behavior aspects (Maldonado, Rivas, Molina, & Flores, 2007) and environmental marketing management (Leonidou & Leonidou, 2011). But just

as Peattie & Crane (2005) affirm, this requires that important changes in marketing belief and practice happen, in order to accomplish a substantive contribution towards a greater sustainability. In the past decades, scientific developments like the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole by the scientist Mario Molina, who became the first Mexican to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1995 (Centro Mario Molina, 2011), have sparked off the public opinion over the effect that human activities are having over the natural environment and have made the political, institutional and individual sectors, among others, reevaluate their roles within the preservation of the environment (Prakash, 2002). Pressure has been created for a change of attitude that requires reevaluation to be a reality in our daily life and in the business environment. This is why companies need to react to this pressure and reconsider their management approach by proactively incorporating the environmental demands of business (Prakash, 2002). As a result, environmental management has been developed as combination of administrative theory and practice with knowledge of the basic sciences, like Biology and Chemistry, in order to associate the environmental requirements and the administrative processes of planning, implementation, control and evaluation. To take advantage of these opportunities, marketing must play a dominant role which will provide knowledge about the environmental consumers the company must relate to, in order to develop strategies, tactics and operational

ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING: A TOOL TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS

activities involving the environmental market opportunities detected in the situational analysis and considering not only customers but also the general context of the company (Chamorro, 2001; Oxley & Hunton-Clarke, 2003). In this article, a conceptual revision of the environmental marketing field is made, beginning with its definition and position in the marketing field. Then, the role of environmentalism in the corporate and marketing strategies is shown and two models of antecedents, components and consequences of environmental marketing are presented. Finally, some conclusions and management implications of the green marketing are proposed. This review is focused on the aspects related to environmental marketing as an administrative and competitive tool that companies use in their efforts to adapt to new cultural tendencies of consumption in the world. The consulted authors refer to this marketing branch using different expressions such as “green marketing”, “ecological marketing”, and “environmental marketing”, amongst others. This review will use the environmental marketing expression to refer the concept in the marketing area. DEFINITIONS IN ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING AND ITS POSITION IN THE MARKETING FIELD

In Figure 1, environmental marketing is presented as a branch of marketing, as well as the main elements that arise from this categorization. In the next paragraphs, these components are explained in detail.

Lorenzo (2002) starts from the marketing definition made by the American Marketing Association (AMA), stipulating that this discipline is “the process of planning and execution of conception, price regulation, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to generate exchange that satisfies both individual and organizational objectives”, and proposing that, for the case of environmental marketing, it is not necessary to expand this concept but to include the environmental component within the marketing philosophy thinking about the consumer not only as an individual but also as an important component of a society merged in a natural environment. But, within society and in the business environment, consumers and interest or power groups like ecologists, governments, suppliers, distributors, consumer leagues, etc. can favor or hamper industrial labor in its relationship with environmental management, and for this reason there is an area called megamarketing (see figure 1) which handles all of the company’s public relationships and actions regarding these power and/or interest groups (Lorenzo, 2002, p. 4). Likewise, another term that has been coined to the marketing field is demarketing (see figure 1), referring to marketing practices in order to discourage the use of negative and harmful products like those considered as “single use products” and encouraging the usage of more durable and recyclable products with a less negative impact on the environment (Lorenzo, 2002, p. 4). This area is becoming more important every day,

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Figure 1. Environmental marketing position within marketing framework (Adapted from Lorenzo (2002, p. 5))

based on the increasing problems that humankind has in the relation with its natural habitat, like global warming, for example. The model leads to the differentiation of non-profit from profit organizations because of their different use of marketing concepts and techniques. This categorization splits the market in two divisions, one being social marketing1 , which applies to non-profit organizations and the other being the marketing profit branch, that develops its activities in profit organizations, but still today most important and significant is the social orientation that their marketing strategies and tactics give them (see figure 1) and being one of the most outstanding environmental quali-

ties of the products developed and offered in their competitive environments (Lorenzo, 2002, pp. 4-5). As a consequence, all kinds of organizations must contemplate aspects of profitability (socially and financially) in their corporate and marketing strategies. But starting from the above and as it is showed in figure 1 the expected results, from an environmental marketing point of view, will be different for every division of this area; forming positive environmental behaviors from the motivation caused by non-profit social marketing, while, in the profit sector, social marketing orientation provides environmental values and attitudes that transform them into shopping habits which represent profit for compa-

ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING: A TOOL TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS

nies. But, in both cases, and as figure 1 shows, the target market is common and includes consumers, general public, associations, etc. (Lorenzo, 2002, p. 5). Keeping in mind this conceptualization, the definitions of Chamorro (2001) about these two parts of environmental marketing are presented. For this author, environmental marketing as a part of social marketing can be defined as: “A set of actions by nonprofit organizations (public administrations, ecologist groups, consumer associations, etc.) to spread desirable environmental ideas and behaviors amongst citizens and the different social and economic agents” (Chamorro, 2001, p. 3). Some examples of these efforts are the campaigns against smoking habits or for the practice of safe sexual behaviors. Environmental marketing, from a business perspective, is defined as: “The process of planning, implementation, and control of a policy of product, price, promotion and distribution that allows these three criteria to happen: (1) satisfy consumer needs, (2) accomplish company objectives, and (3) that the process generates minimum negative environmental impact” (Chamorro, 2001, p. 4). CORPORATE MARKETING STRATEGIES AND TACTICS The corporate strategy can be defined as “a fundamental model of present and planned goals, resource distribution, and organizational interaction with markets, competitors and other environmental factors” (Mullins, Walker, Boyd, & Larréché, 2007, p. 39). This is

the way an organization creates synergy between its internal components and a macro environment and its industrial sector, in order to obtain a favorable competitive position. This definition includes environmental factors covering the organizations’ natural environment that is clearly one of the key factors in the definition of such strategies. At the same time, the tactic is “a specific outline of resource management of a general strategy” (Chiavenato, 2006, p. 202). This author adds that the strategy refers to the enterprise as a whole, which hopes to meet certain global objectives of the organization, while the tactic refers to the strategy components, looking to reach departmental objectives. According to Branzei, UrsackiBryant, Vertinsky, & Zhang (2004, pág. 1077) the initial strategic objectives of a company are transformed into organizational answers that are adjusted according to feedback processes. Corporate decisions form general goals that guide the settlement for specific goals and real actions within the different levels of the company that uses feedback to identify and correct local discrepancies, which are evaluated and answered after each feedback process. A fundamental part of the corporate strategy is its marketing component, which incorporates markets and competitors. This generates the need to plan a coherent market strategy along with the business strategy, (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2006, p. 50) defined as “the activity to select and describe one or more target markets, to create and maintain a marketing mix that produces mutual satisfactory exchanges with

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target markets”. According to Murdoch, Blackey, & Blyth (2001, p. 145) “its main focus is to identify and create a competitive advantage, which has been seen as a source of significant benefits for any organization”. In the case of environmental marketing Ginsberg & Bloom (2004) state that companies should consider their industry green market size and the differentiation capacity of their “green” products before developing their marketing strategies. With this evaluation in mind the “green” strategy becomes one of the most fundamentals components of the global corporate strategy. CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTALISM AS A STRATEGIC ANSWER Banerjee (2002, p. 181) defines corporate environmentalism as “an organizational recognition of the legitimacy and importance of the biophysical environment when formulating a corporate strategy, and integrating environmental aspects into the strategic planning process”. As the author points out, this definition covers several key elements for business environmentalism like the acknowledgment of the environmental issue, but also its interest groups, and the incorporation of environmental aspects into company strategic planning. He adds the importance of integrating these processes at all the levels of the company (Banerjee, 2002, p. 181). Also this author proposes a measurement scale of the environmental strategic focal point that allows evaluating how much is the organizations commitment to this subject in all their organizational levels (Banerjee, 2002, p. 185).

ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING AS A SOURCE FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES According to Murillo, Garcés, & Rivera (2008, p. 13), the environmental issue produces in companies a search for competitive advantages with productive and commercial motivations. The first kind of them look for opportunities to increase productivity and reduce costs, while the second ones, to increase sales and improve market position by generating differentiating elements that arise from consumer environmental awareness. Furthermore, more demanding environmental regulations put pressure on the companies´ cost structures and the reduction of unnecessary residues in their production processes everyday. From the above the opportunity to reduce derivate costs of production intensification emerges: a better use of materials and energy, wastes sales, and reduction of generated pollution, with savings in residue control and treatment that also could establish legal long term responsibilities. In relation to market share increases, the quoted authors claim they can be achieved by creating new and specific arguments for competitive differentiation for products targeting environmentally aware consumers segments, which will be bigger every day. These new emerging markets of environmental products and technologies provide a reason for new product – market combinations and therefore, a potential for sales increases. In order to gain this type of differentiation, company systems can modify its inputs, processes and/or out-

ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING: A TOOL TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS

puts to obtain additional competitive advantages (Handfield, Sroufe, & Walton, 2005). In fact, the design of eco-effective products and the environmental management contribution in this process have been interactions developed for some significant time (Frei, 1998). This author suggests that environmental aspects must be integrated at the earliest product design stages. A good example of applied environmental marketing on a massive market, the US electric supply, can be examined in Bird & Swezey (2005), where they exemplify users that pay higher electrical consumption prices that generate more resources to develop sources of renewable energy. MARKET AND ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING ORIENTATION Market orientation is defined as “the creation of market intelligence in reference to actual and future costumer needs, as well as its diffusion in all company departments to respond and comprehend such needs” (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990, p. 6). For Kohli and Jaworski (1990, p. 6) company results are given through target market selection, design and offering of products and services that respond to actual and future costumer needs. Narver and Slater (1990, p. 21) also use the concept of market orientation, but they, based on available literature, propose that it consists of three behavioral components: consumer orientation, competitor orientation and functional coordination; and two criteria for

decision: long term focus and profitability. González & González (2007, p. 136) aggregate that market orientation will impulse the company’s competitive strategy and action, that satisfy consumer needs and that people environmental awareness must become an element to consider within market orientation and generate positive environmental output taking advantage of this opportunity. It should be highlighted that in the last decades the consumers’ environmental awareness has increased in such a way that has been integrated as one of the most significant in the decision variables in the product adoption process. STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING PLANNING Among the strategic planning processes and integrated with corporate environmentalism, strategic marketing plans that respond to the elements within the definition of environmental marketing should be created in a management perspective. To carry out this process, McDaniel & Rylander (1993, p. 7) propose a strategic environmental marketing planning model that is presented in Figure 2. But Rivera-Camino (2007, p. 1331) points out that a progression happens through environmental marketing inside the organizations and it evolves from a functional or tactical level to a semi-strategic one in order to finally become truly strategic. The first stage, known as the tactic stage, is about taking functional decisions in order to achieve specific objectives. The second

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Figure 2: Strategic environmental marketing planning model (Adapted from McDaniel & Rylander (1993, p. 7))

stage, the semi–strategic stage, is when there is a lack of uniform strategic efforts inside the market strategy around the company in order to incorporate the environmental issue. Finally, the third stage, the strategic stage, is when general management takes decisions based on objectives and environmental issues within organizational micro and macro systems. This is why environmental marketing is a tool, that if applied in a company’s areas and activities effectively, will produce long term benefits to the organization (Polonsky & Rosenberger III, 2001).

ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING Authors like Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen (1998), Menon & Menon (1997) and Menon, Menon, Chowdhury, & Jankovich (1999), have developed models to represent environmental marketing and the impact it represents for organizations as an integral part of corporate strategy. First, the model of Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen (1998) is presented in Figure 3. Environmental marketing antecedents: Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen (1998, pp. 325-7) propose (see Figure 3) a set of antecedents for environmental marketing application, three external

ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING: A TOOL TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS

Figure 3. Model of antecedents and consequences of environmental marketing, proposed by Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen (1998, p. 325)

and two internal and which would be explained in the next sections. Environmental awareness of the consumer: it refers to consumer attitudes and commitment towards the environmental issue, which are reflected in their shopping habits. Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen (1998, pp. 325-6) add that consumer adoption of environmental shopping habits depend on three factors: their commitment towards the environmental issue, their expectative for business environmentalism, and the willingness to exert their negotiation power that makes the company adjust to their needs. Competitive intensity: this variable will affect environmental marketing implementation in every sector of the company. The cited authors assure that

the greater the competitive intensity is, the more volunteer efforts of environmental marketing will be made by companies, in their effort to differentiate themselves from competitors and that issue forces them to restructure and reorganize their marketing activities (Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen, 1998, p. 326). Regulatory and institutional intensity: environmental regulations are increasing worldwide, as well as the pressure to comply with them imposed by power groups. Therefore, in a more regulated environment the pressure to carry them out creates a greater interest for the adoption of environmental marketing amongst companies (Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen, 1998, p. 326). Marketing managers’ environmental

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awareness: in this case it can be assumed that the environmental commitment of marketing managers will lead them to impose their influence in the organization so that departments should incorporate in their practices the necessary environmental marketing fundamentals (Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen, 1998, p. 326). Business sensibility towards environmentalism: it is assumed that if a company includes corporate environmentalism in its politics, the enterprise would spread it through the whole structure and would have specialized personnel that serve as marketing advisors in the conception and implementation of environmental marketing strategies (Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen, 1998, pp. 326-7). Consequences of environmental marketing: on the basis that environmental marketing will allow higher prices, reduce cost through environmental programs and accomplish greater sales and as a whole outcome permitting the improvement of the organizational performance (Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen, 1998, p. 327). For the authors of this model, the fact that the relation between customer environmental awareness and environmental marketing was negative was surprising, although they argue this result may be due to the impossibility of consumers to exercise their negotiation power over manufacturers or the low willingness to pay attention by producers; it can also be a result of sample size or measurement difficulties (Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen, 1998, p. 331). This is in fact, a paradoxical result con-

sidering the customer orientation that most organizations promote. Something similar happened with the relationship between marketing managers´ environmental awareness and environmental marketing application, which authors analyze as a result of the inability to incorporate personal concerns in professional life or the lack of knowledge about environmental marketing (Langerak, Peelen, & van der Veen, 1998, p. 331). The other proposed relationships in this model were supported by their results. The components of this model about environmental marketing only contemplate two elements: green products and green communications, when in fact other aspects of marketing such as processes of segmentation, positioning, pricing and distribution must be taken into consideration and make this model incomplete. The Menon, Menon, Chowdhury, & Jankovich (1999, p. 7) model shares a lot of elements from the previously explained, both in antecedents and consequences (named as impetus in this case) of the environmental marketing based programs (See Figure 4). It proposes the same external environmental marketing antecedents like customer expectations, competitive intensity and regulatory environment; whereas the internal aspects are arranged under the elements of general management sensibility towards environmentalism and that the company envisages the marketing field as a real opportunity for business creation (Menon, Menon, Chowdhury, & Jankovich, 1999, pp. 7-10), and that in the previous model it is termed as environmental business sensibility.

ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING: A TOOL TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS

Figure 4. Impetus for environmental marketing based programs (Adapted from Menon A., Menon, Chowdhury, & Jankovich (1999, p. 7))

In this case, consequences are divided between those related to consumer responses, including brand image, loyalty, good corporate citizenship perception and resistance towards accepting public campaigns against the company or their products; and those related to market and financial performance, like market share and return on investment. Also on this model, within the environmental marketing component, not just product and communication aspects are contemplated; it also incorporates those related with distribution, pricing and market selection (Menon, Menon, Chowdhury, & Jankovich, 1999, pp. 7-10). In table 1 there is a comparison of several characteristics of the environmental marketing models presented in the last paragraphs. Other performance measurements used to evaluate environmental marketing impact can be found in Baker &

Sinkula (2005), where they measured success of new products launch and market share change; and in Fraj-Andrés, Martinez-Salinas, & Matute-Vallejo (2009), where they use profitability, sales growth, profit before taxes, and market share. It would be important to elaborate more research and applied work in order to develop more standardized measures in this field and thus contribute to an easy evaluation of marketing environmental efforts by organizations. Beyond measurements it is important to point out that international evidence indicates that environmental marketing generates superior organizational performance and should promote this marketing focus to more firms. CONCLUDING REMARKS The environmental marketing element should constitute one of the most important components of any business

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Authors

Involved variables

Empiric Evidence

Advantages

Langerak, Peelen & van der Veen (1998) See figure 3

Consumer awareness. Competitive intensity. Regulatory intensity. Marketing managers’ environmental awareness. Environmental marketing management elements. Business performance.

Model tested in 138 Dutch manufacturers, receiving responses from 76 marketing managers, 49 environmental staff members and 13 CEO’s. A correlation partial analysis was used. Results show that environmental regulations are the most important reason to adopt friendly environmental marketing programs. It also shows that companies, which voluntarily adopt an environmental marketing strategy, exploit market opportunities and improve business performance.

1. Empiric eviden- 1. The environce was obtained. mental component only contem2. It establishes plates product and a difference communication between the aspects. interpretations of environmental 2. It uses a Dutch marketing depen- manufacter ding on the area sample but it does the respondet not present its works at. composition by sector.

Menon A., Menon Chowdhury & Jankovich (1999) See figure 4

Customer expectations. Competitive intensity. Market opportunity. Regulatory Environment. Senior managers’ environmental awareness. Environmental marketing based programs. Customer response. Financial performance.

The model presented in this article is based on academic literature review and the presentation of different real business scenario but has no empiric verification. But on a previous article (Menon A., Menon A., 1997) two of the authors propose a similar model based on 31 in-depth interviews with senior managers and literature review.

1. It incorporates more elements to the environmental marketing programs, such as product, distribution, communication, pricing and market selection. 2. It presents business examples in different industrial sectors, which proves the importance of environmental marketing in the business world.

Table 1. Environmental marketing models

Disadvantages

1. Empirical verification was not realized. 2. No special criteria for the selection of business scenarios are set, making this document an “anedoctal” revision.

ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING: A TOOL TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS

plan in all kinds of organizations looking for its main positive consequences, the searching of new opportunities in the markets and the incorporation of elements of social responsibility in the business dynamics. But in this process the environmental marketing might help the enterprises in the structuration and development of competitive advantages, especially significant in a world immersed in many environmental issues and where many people are interested in their contribution through the change of their shopping and consumption habits. Furthermore, one additional aspect would be that these competitive advantages could be more sustainable because this issue will remain in the next decades as one of the “hottest” topics in the world agenda. Further research should be developed in order to generate a conceptual and practical framework that set measures to permit practitioners and academicians to evaluate the efforts of the enterprises in environmental marketing in a more objective way. In the case of companies that make environmental efforts in their production processes, product development and other aspects of their activities; but have not achieved the proper knowledge of those activities within their stakeholders, the environmental marketing should help support them by offering its concepts and tools for the diffusion of these efforts. The environmental marketing models presented in this article shared several characteristics both in terms of antecedents and consequences of this process. In the external antecedents

they propose as one the significant variables those related with the necessities and attitudes of the consumers because they “trigger” the desire to buy some kind of products (green products, for example). Other important determinant is the competitive intensity in the respective market. This aspect would influence the efforts of the company in order to develop the knowledge of the “green” consumers and the application of this in the design, distribution and all elements of the usage of its products. Finally, in the case of the external antecedents, the regulatory dispositions in the industrial sector shape the depth of the involvement of the business in the environment issue. In the internal antecedents there are two significant aspects, the values and attitude of the managers in relation with the environmentalism and the perception, by the company, of the “green market” as an interesting business opportunity. The models exposed agree that the consequences of the environmental marketing cover two aspects, those related to the image and loyalty of the consumers with the brands and its impact in terms of the sales, market and financial results of the companies. It could be propounded that the consequences of the “green marketing” go beyond the consumers and incorporate other stakeholders of the business and finally the society as a whole. One of the disadvantages of these models is the lack of empirical verification of them, opening another path to future research and it should cover various contexts, for example countries of different geographical regions, income, etc.

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NOTA (1) Social marketing can be defined as: “a particular marketing aspect that pursues the stimulation and easier acceptation of ideas or social behaviors that are considered beneficial to society (for example, (…) environmental protection, etc.) or, on the contrary, tries to stop or discourage those other ideas or behaviors that are frowned upon” (Lorenzo, 2002, p. 4).

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