Ethical and Sustainable Marketing
Notes
Lecture 1
Learning Outcomes
o Discuss the relevance of a rapidly changing business environment and its influence
on the marketing concept.
o Explain the contributions of corporate social responsibility, and societal and green
marketing approaches to understanding the development of sustainable marketing.
o Explore the Triple Bottom Line, the significance of people, planet, profit and the case
for sustainability.
o Define the concept of sustainable marketing.
o Indicate the differences between conventional marketing practice and the
sustainable marketing paradigm.
Business Ethics
o “Ethics are rules of conduct – how most people in a culture judge what is right and
what is wrong. Business ethics are basic values that guide a firm’s behaviour. These
values govern decisions which managers make about what goes into their products,
how they are advertised and sold, and how they are disposed of. Developing good
business ethics is the first step towards creating social profit, which is the firm’s
normal profit plus or minus any externalities that occur during the transactions. In
other words, when firms want to determine their social profit they have to take into
account any benefit or harm they cause to other parties during their business
activities. Good business ethics are very important for companies because this
ensures that customers will trust them in the short and long term and that they can
retain honest staff who won’t carry out questionable business practices” (Solomon
et al., 2012: 20).
Business Ethics Stories
o Moral decisions that faces profit-seeking organisations
o Conflict between public duty, self-interest and shareholders
financial interests
society welfare
environmental respect
legislation
Measures of Corporate, Social, Ethical and Environmental Performance
o FTSE4Good
Working towards environmental sustainability
Developing positive relationships with stakeholders
Upholding and supporting Universal Human Rights
o Dow Jones Sustainability Indices
Tracks financial performance of companies committed to long term
sustainability
Guide for investment in ethical companies or those professing sustainability
o Ethical Investment Research Service
Charity set up in 1983 by churches and charities
Research companies worldwide
Provides information for those wishing to invest ethically
, o All 1-4 previous indices professionally designed with checks and tests to ensure
validity (judgement rather than measures)
Al Gore (Former US Vice President)
o ‘The age of sustainability has arrived, but now we must drive it fully through our
economic system. To do so, markets will have to continue to evolve to take into
account the full environmental and social externalities of business... This shift will
require nothing less than a complete change in mindset – one that views our planet
as a long-term investment, rather than a business in liquidation’.
The Triple Bottom Line (Elkington, 1994)
o To achieve outstanding triple bottom line performance, new types of economic,
social, and environmental partnership are needed. Long-standing enemies must shift
from mutual subversion to new
o forms of symbiosis. The resulting partner-
o ships will help each partner perform traditional tasks more efficiently, while
providing a platform from which to reach towards goals that none of the partners
could hope to achieve on their own.
o (Elkington, 1998)
People, planet, profit
o
Sustainable marketing
o Sustainable marketing is a holistic approach whose aim is to ensure that marketing
strategies and tactics are specifically designed to secure a socially equitable,
environmentally-friendly and economically fair and viable business for the benefit of
current and future generations of customers, employees and society as a whole.
Moving away from the conventional
o
, o
o
Ethical Business Decision Making
o Decision making occurs on several distinct levels:
The level of the individual
The level of the organisation
The level of the business system
o Ethical dilemmas for top managers are due to conflicts between three main roles:
Managers as economic actors
Managers as company leaders
Managers as community leaders
Ethical Law
o Law prevails in public life, whereas ethics is a private matter
o Law embodies the ethics of business: ethical rules that apply to business have been
enacted by legislators into laws
o Legal departments do not always assure successful legal resolutions
o The law is:
Inappropriate for regulating certain aspects of business activity
Slow to develop in new areas of concern and often unsettled
Employs moral concepts that are not precisely defined
g
Lecture 2
Learning Objectives
Notes
Lecture 1
Learning Outcomes
o Discuss the relevance of a rapidly changing business environment and its influence
on the marketing concept.
o Explain the contributions of corporate social responsibility, and societal and green
marketing approaches to understanding the development of sustainable marketing.
o Explore the Triple Bottom Line, the significance of people, planet, profit and the case
for sustainability.
o Define the concept of sustainable marketing.
o Indicate the differences between conventional marketing practice and the
sustainable marketing paradigm.
Business Ethics
o “Ethics are rules of conduct – how most people in a culture judge what is right and
what is wrong. Business ethics are basic values that guide a firm’s behaviour. These
values govern decisions which managers make about what goes into their products,
how they are advertised and sold, and how they are disposed of. Developing good
business ethics is the first step towards creating social profit, which is the firm’s
normal profit plus or minus any externalities that occur during the transactions. In
other words, when firms want to determine their social profit they have to take into
account any benefit or harm they cause to other parties during their business
activities. Good business ethics are very important for companies because this
ensures that customers will trust them in the short and long term and that they can
retain honest staff who won’t carry out questionable business practices” (Solomon
et al., 2012: 20).
Business Ethics Stories
o Moral decisions that faces profit-seeking organisations
o Conflict between public duty, self-interest and shareholders
financial interests
society welfare
environmental respect
legislation
Measures of Corporate, Social, Ethical and Environmental Performance
o FTSE4Good
Working towards environmental sustainability
Developing positive relationships with stakeholders
Upholding and supporting Universal Human Rights
o Dow Jones Sustainability Indices
Tracks financial performance of companies committed to long term
sustainability
Guide for investment in ethical companies or those professing sustainability
o Ethical Investment Research Service
Charity set up in 1983 by churches and charities
Research companies worldwide
Provides information for those wishing to invest ethically
, o All 1-4 previous indices professionally designed with checks and tests to ensure
validity (judgement rather than measures)
Al Gore (Former US Vice President)
o ‘The age of sustainability has arrived, but now we must drive it fully through our
economic system. To do so, markets will have to continue to evolve to take into
account the full environmental and social externalities of business... This shift will
require nothing less than a complete change in mindset – one that views our planet
as a long-term investment, rather than a business in liquidation’.
The Triple Bottom Line (Elkington, 1994)
o To achieve outstanding triple bottom line performance, new types of economic,
social, and environmental partnership are needed. Long-standing enemies must shift
from mutual subversion to new
o forms of symbiosis. The resulting partner-
o ships will help each partner perform traditional tasks more efficiently, while
providing a platform from which to reach towards goals that none of the partners
could hope to achieve on their own.
o (Elkington, 1998)
People, planet, profit
o
Sustainable marketing
o Sustainable marketing is a holistic approach whose aim is to ensure that marketing
strategies and tactics are specifically designed to secure a socially equitable,
environmentally-friendly and economically fair and viable business for the benefit of
current and future generations of customers, employees and society as a whole.
Moving away from the conventional
o
, o
o
Ethical Business Decision Making
o Decision making occurs on several distinct levels:
The level of the individual
The level of the organisation
The level of the business system
o Ethical dilemmas for top managers are due to conflicts between three main roles:
Managers as economic actors
Managers as company leaders
Managers as community leaders
Ethical Law
o Law prevails in public life, whereas ethics is a private matter
o Law embodies the ethics of business: ethical rules that apply to business have been
enacted by legislators into laws
o Legal departments do not always assure successful legal resolutions
o The law is:
Inappropriate for regulating certain aspects of business activity
Slow to develop in new areas of concern and often unsettled
Employs moral concepts that are not precisely defined
g
Lecture 2
Learning Objectives
