The Marketing Book 5th Edition

Green marketing 745

can represent a significant departure from
previous strategies, since it effectively reduces
rates for product replacement, and may require
a switch of emphasis in strategy away from
purchase and towards leasing or towards the
marketing of complementary products and
services.
The need to examine the impact of prod-
ucts from cradle to grave is leading towards the
concept of re-marketing or even closed-loop

(waste free) marketing. Various tools are being

developed to aid the green marketer to assess

the full environmental impact of products, the

best known being life cycle analysis and eco-

balance analysis. The greatest difficulty for the

marketer is to know how far forward or back,

and down how many of the branches of the

supply chain, such an analysis should go. An

example of a cradle-to-grave life cycle is pro-

vided in Figure 28.3.

Table 28.2 Stakeholder interest in product impacts

Stakeholder Potential issue Indicator

Company shareholders

and managers

Product safety and acceptability Prosecutions; inclusion rate in

ethical funds

Employees Harmful processes and substances Accident rate; time lost due to

injury

Customers Labelling Customer satisfaction; breaches of

government/industry guidelines

Business partners Product recall handling Efficiency, speed and success of

product recalls

Suppliers Involvement in research and

development

Results of supplier element of life

cycle analysis and use of results in

the design process

Competitors Health and safety performance and

effect on industry reputation

Performance against industry

benchmarks and guidelines

Government and

regulators

Product stewardship Quantity of hazardous non-product

output (NPO) returned to process

or market by reuse/recycling

NGOs, pressure

groups and other

influencers

Product safety and

socio-environmental impacts

Incidence of NGO/regulatory

targeting

Communities Harmful substances Releases to air, land and water of

NPO

Source: adapted from WBCSD (2000) Corporate Social Responsibility: Making Good Business Sense, Geneva,

Switzerland.