Managerial Perspectives on Willingness to Pay for Green Marketing: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Introduction

Business activities are a part of the social fabric of society. Therefore, the survival and development of business activity are depended on the environment in which it operates. The business environment includes the ecological environment. Thus, it is our duty to protect the ecological environment so that economic activities are carried on without harming the environment. Economic well- being is not the only reason for preserving the environment, but it can also impact the existence of mankind. Thus, protecting the ecology is the societal obligations of both the individual and business. Marketing discipline being an important cog in business activities plays an important role in linking ecology with economic activities. It is well documented in Marketing literature that the strategic importance of two factors 1) customer retention and 2) long-term customer relationship. Both these are used to achieve the marketing performance. The concept of ecological sustainability which is the convergence of marketing thought process to coexist with economic activities. Such an important thought process calls for consideration of environmental issues in business domain, especially Marketing. The concept of Green marketing credited to the work of Lazer in the year 1969, wherein he addressed the issue of, the societal dimension of marketing(Lazer, 1969). It is here, where in he addressed three important issues 1) the constraint of environmental resources, 2) environmental impacts of conventional marketing and 3) greening of the different aspects of traditional marketing. In modern times, the key challenge for mankind is to find more sustainable and equitable ways to produce, consume and live. Sustainability was once a vision of the future shared by an environmentally-orientated few. However, with the publication of the Brundtland Report ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987 brought the issue into the mainstream (Brundtland, 1987).