MASB Director Neil Bendle, Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Georgia, recently assembled an outstanding group of experts to draft a set of definitions for terms related to sustainable marketing, a topic rapidly growing in relevance. As a result, eight new terms were approved by the project team and added to the Universal Marketing Dictionary, the only regularly updated and edited marketing lexicon on the Internet.
According to the new definition, sustainable marketing “aims to recognize and address negative environmental and societal externalities while enhancing the positive environmental, international development, and societal benefits of the production, distribution, promotion, packaging, and pricing of an organization’s offerings” – like a company adopting a reduced packaging strategy across all its products.
Sustainable marketing is broader than sustainability marketing as it encompasses systems and strategies rather than just communication of specific sustainable claims by a single entity.
The experts consulted were:
- Bryan Bollinger – Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business
- Dana Alden – William R. Johnson Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Sustainable Marketing
- Karen Page Winterich – Gerald I. Susman Professor in Sustainability at Penn State University, Co-Editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and President of the Academic Council of the American Marketing Association
- Neeraj Bharadwaj – Professor of Marketing at the University of Tennessee and Chair, AMA Sustainable Marketing and Innovation Special Interest Group (SUSTSIG)
- Sarah Whitley, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Georgia – Terry School of Business
- Sundar Bharadwaj – The Coca Cola Company Chair Professor of Marketing at the University of Georgia and Co-Chair of the AMA Sustainable Marketing and Innovation Special Interest Group (SUSTSIG)
The new terms are:
Sustainability
Financial sustainability
Sustainability marketing
Sustainable innovation
Sustainable marketing
Greendazzling
Greenhushing
Greenwashing
Thanks to Neil and all of the experts for establishing clear definitions and eliminating ambiguity for these important marketing terms! According to dictionary editor Erich Decker-Hoppen, the new terms will be making appearances in upcoming Marketing Term of the Week posts.
