Green or environmental marketing includes all kinds of environmental and nature-friendly marketing activities to meet consumer demands and needs. While meeting these demands and requirements, care should be taken to cause minimum damage to the natural environment.

The important reason why green marketing is preferred is that businesses do not want to lose their competitive position in the current market. Therefore, businesses have started to produce products that do not harm the environment and the natural environment by removing their products that harm nature from production, and by emphasizing this situation in their advertisements, they have ensured that consumer demands are directed to new harmless products, and they both increase their market share and gain superiority in this field against their competitors.

The green marketing approach can be examined in four stages:

In the first stage,  green products are designed for environmental consumers. For example, cars working with alternative fuel technology, products that do not harm the environment, etc. We can call this stage green targeting.

In the second phase,  green strategies are developed. For example, environmental measures are taken, such as less waste in the enterprise and increasing energy efficiency.

In the third stage,  the production of non-green products, that is, not environmentally friendly, is stopped and only green products are produced.

In the fourth stage,  it is not enough just to be green or environmentalist. The business has now reached the awareness of social responsibility in every sense. The ability of businesses to reach green marketing awareness develops depending on business culture and environmental factors.

Goals of Green Marketing

1. The aim of green marketing should not be to create new consumption areas, but to use limited natural resources in the best way.
2. Green marketing should focus not on producing disposable products, but on maintaining and maintaining the natural balance and minimizing energy consumption.
3. Green marketing should seek alternatives that will prevent the destruction of the environment and reduce the environmental pollution created by the industry.
4. Green marketing should focus on promoting the use of environmentally friendly products, minimizing the packaging process and creating recycling awareness in the society.
5. Green marketing should distribute responsibility in order to stabilize the system. It should mobilize consumers, governments and voluntary organizations.

Reasons Why Businesses Choose Green Marketing

The reasons why businesses choose green marketing are explained with the following five items:

1. Businesses see green marketing as an opportunity to achieve their goals.
2. Businesses think that they increase their morale by showing social sensitivity on the subject.
3. Government institutions force businesses to be sensitive to the environment with various incentives and sanctions.
4. Businesses use their environmental activities as a pressure factor on other businesses with which they compete.
5. Cost factors such as the pricing applied during the discharge of waste, and the reduction of the use of raw materials and other materials force businesses to change their behavior on the subject.

Green Marketing Strategies

There are five strategies applied in Green Marketing. These:

1. 1. Green Product Strategy:  The products sold do not pollute the environment, consume less natural resources, and are recyclable.
   2. Green Pricing Strategy:  It is the effect of the cost on the price of producing the products in a way that causes the least damage to the environment.
   3. Green Promotion Strategy:  It should be possible to test the accuracy of the explanations made by the businesses. In other words, businesses have to do their part in the environmentally friendly practices they say.

"4S" formula in green product concept

There is a 4S rule that has entered the literature in the marketing process of jade. 4S reveals the functioning of the green marketing process.

Satisfaction: Satisfaction of consumers' needs and wants.
Sustainability: Ensuring the continuity of the product's energy and resources.
Social Acceptability: It is the social acceptance of the product or business that it does not harm living things and nature.
Safety: The product does not endanger the health of people.
Green Marketing Examples

HP (First Steps to Green): As one of the first companies to work in the field of recycling and reusability globally, HP is one of the leading companies to be a green company.

Opet (Green Road): Under the leadership of the company's board member, Nurten Öztürk, efforts to green all Opet stations and their surroundings have been continuing since 2004.

Mercedes-Benz: The prestigious brand, which also carries out environmental activities on behalf of its customers, implements important strategies in the field of green marketing and emphasizes that a company that is sensitive to social problems should place this perspective in its corporate culture as well as produce environmentally friendly products. Mercedes also provides its customers with trainings that will enable them to reduce their carbon emissions to 60%.

Boyner: With the social compliance project they followed, they achieved a successful reduction of 12.15% in consumption per square meter and 22.46% in the change in unit emissions in 2012-2013 comparison.

Hayat Su: The brand, which both shortened the bottle lengths and thinned the bottle cap thicknesses, achieved a profit equivalent to 15 million bottles in 5 years with this savings.

Dimes: It enriched all its trucks with Euro5 engine and minimized the harmful gases it released to the environment. It also provided 20% fuel savings with its hybrid vehicle development project.

CarreforuSA: It has enabled suppliers to deliver to warehouses instead of the direct distribution method, and consolidates the goods from them and sends them to the markets with a single vehicle.

Selpak: There is a paper towel series produced from 80% recyclable paper, using less water and energy.

Lacoste: Changed its logo to endangered animals to draw attention to endangered creatures.

Starbucks: It is one of the leading companies in green marketing practices. The company has been investing heavily in social and environmental projects, especially in recent years. It has been certified by LEED (sustainable green building certification created by the American Green Building Council) since 2005. It has gone beyond that, planning to eliminate all plastic straws by the current year and to open 10,000 eco-friendly stores by 2025. It uses green materials to manufacture, package and deliver its product to customers. As part of its “Green Store” initiative, the brand plans to reduce waste and use 30 percent less water and 25 percent less power in its production processes.

As a result, we need an environmentalist perspective to minimize the increasing global problems today. One of the ways to save the damage we do to nature while fulfilling the wishes of the consumers; attention is paid to the fact that the products produced are more careful and environmentally friendly. In this way, we can contribute to the reduction of environmental pollution and enable many companies and businesses to act consciously. There are two basic conditions for consumers and companies to be sensitive; to clean the wastes made or to recycle the wastes by being environmentally friendly. In this way, businesses will gain more customers and help protect nature.

Source: Yeşil Pazarlama Nedir