The Role of Marketing in Sustainable Development

Abstract

At the present time, with rapid increase of population and besides increase of consumption, misusage of resources, environmental pollution and climate changes, a lot of environmental problems are occurring and will continue to occur. In this respect, the businesses and especially the marketing function have important responsibilities on prevention of those factors which affect the sustainable development and consequently on providing sustainable development. Some of those businesses aim to increase their competitive power by using recyclable materials, reusing of packages and by using energy saving applications at production processes whereas the others aims to use the anxiety of the consumer segment, who are sensitive to environment and people’s health as a tool of differentiation. As a result, in spite of the increase on demand of environmentally friendly products, as from 1990’s neither at the number of businesses who apply strategies, nor the number of consumers who are interested on environmentally friendly products reached to expected level. However, the main problem here is not just the existence of businesses that are far from ethical and social responsibility, at the same time, it is based on whether the strategies that the businesses who act with social responsibility conscious are as supporter of sustainable development. The aim of this study is to suggest the marketing strategies and applications which can be applied for understanding how marketing can contribute to sustainable development and explaining its role in the development of sustainability.