Environment Marketing Management

INTRODUCTION

I engage in this course because I’m really interested in the environment, from the last years following different news and changing in the public interest in the matter. I think that nature is important subject of great relevance.

In this way I decided to attend the course of environmental marketing management, in critical way to everything I was learning and studying. This moved from my personal idea that each writing or article that we read is not objective, but subjective. Luckily in this period of study, I had opportunity to study for Environmental marketing management and my exam of Public Economics and discovering how the subject are related under the argument of bad externalities. I’m studying just now the different type control of government (in this case U.S.A.) on the pollution, with aim to regulate the economy and protect the environment. The idea of the author (Joseph E. Stiglitz ex. Chairman of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers) is radically different from the ones hear at lesson. I prefer to have different documentation and gain new knowledge.

Fines, marketable permits, regulation and innovation are different way for a government to control pollution that constitute a bad externalities in the way that, if producing we create goods useful for the person, we also create pollution that is expensive problem to solve.

The author follows the same points discussed at lesson.

Fines and marketable permits are not the best solution. In both case firms could be pushed, to maximise their profits to pay the fines or to buy marketable permits from less polluting companies (depending from the grade of fine); the same is also for the subsidizing. Performance based regulations and input regulations are introduced like one of the best way to control the pollution created from the market. Performance based regulation can make some injustice in the market, like example taken from the scrubber regulation in the American coal industry, where the imposition of limits on pollution led some producer from western U.S.A. not to use scrubber thanks to their different geological characteristic of resources, with bad competition to east producer. In this way performance based regulations makes difference between geographical areas; while would be better that all producers be pushed to reduce pollution. This type of solution was often driven more from politics than policy.

Also different problem to home economy could be given from innovation policy. Example was the forced innovation of selling cars that consume 40 gallon for miles, forcing industry to develop a product meeting these standards. Honda in 1970 created an engine (introduced with Honda Accord in 1976) that was ready to meet these standards of consumption, imposed from the U.S.A. government. Americans firms get disadvantage with foreign competitors, policies that the government was not interested to gain. I introduced in the Tuesday 29.1 discussion of the article “Policies for a sustainable consumption” with my team, the same example of Fiat and the local community of Turin. How could be the effect of a too much innovative regulation?

Public Economics, is interested in the bad externalities produced from the society, but also valuate the under a cost-effective point of view. Policies don’t have to damage the economy or create deflections.

My personal idea is that government hardly can protect the environment, without a global coordination and cooperation of business interested in developing new product and customer, in buying them.

I strongly believe in the basis of the course, tell in the first lesson with different example, like the future car market of China in the next 10/15 years.

The growth of the developing countries will constitute the 90% of the future world population, making environmental marketing management interesting subject:

1. Because it will develop in the future, the environment will be a more serious problem and the costumers will always be more interested in environmental-friendly products.

2. Big changing in the environment are happening just now and affecting everybody.

The problem is explained with the tragedy of the common, few slides after. Business is interested in the maximisation of profits and production.

The lost made from a surplus of production that is shared from the world, is less then the profit given to the producer by one more unit, because if we call n the unit of additional production, the damage related to the unit is n/world population.

The article of Sanne “Policies for a sustainable consumption” explains how businesses try to influence costumer for profits. Society is characterized by the interrelation between politics, business and costumer.

Interrelation that left costumers “locked-in” a situation of “high consumption/high hours” of work. High consumption generates high pollution.

Possible solutions could be found reducing consumption, with less working hours and production. Consumer could have more free time and enjoy different type of products/service, that are not so environmentally-bad.

Other big problem introduced in the article of Geoffrey P.Glasby is the excessive population growth. The discussion of the article seems to describe it without possible resolution getting in an extreme conclusion.

The bases are introduced in the first lesson, explaining why environmental marketing management is important subject.

MARKETING AND ENVIROMENT, FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT.

The second lesson started with two different definitions of marketing, AMA 2005 and AMA prior 2005, the difference between the definitions is the presence of three different words: stakeholder, delivering value, customers. This underlines the changing of idea from different time and a slow evolution of the concept of marketing that is dealing us in the study of this course.

Marketing of our years is characterized by little interest in environmental issues and sustainability that could also be very profitable, giving firms competitive advantage with a consumer always more interested in it.

Instead marketing aim is maximise its profits, creating always a growing consumption.

Fundamental issue is the difference between sustainable marketing and sustainability marketing. Both are interested in making good relationship with their costumers. The first one is interested in respecting the ecosystem to