Microsoft Word - Vol 1..doc

Green Marketing Initiatives of theIndian Corporates: An Empirical Study P. MarishkumarV.M.K.V. Engineering College,Vinayaka Missions University,Tamil Nadu, India. B. RajnarayananV.M.K.V. Engineering College,Vinayaka Missions University,Tamil Nadu, India.IntroductionThere is growing interest among the consumers all over the world regarding protection of environment. Worldwide evidence indicates that people are concerned about the environment and are changing their behavior. As a result of this, green marketing has emerged which speaks for growing market for sustainable and socially responsible products and services. It is seen that most of the consumers, both individual and industrial, are becoming more concerned about environment friendly products. Most of them feel that environment friendly products are safe to use. Thus, green marketing has emerged, which aims at marketing sustainable and socially responsible products and services. Now is the era of recyclable, non-toxic and environment friendly goods. This has become the new mantra for marketers to satisfy the needs of consumers and earn better profits. The Indian consumer is evolving rapidly and with the democratization of media, global trends reach India much more rapidly than in the past. Companies are adopting green technology and methods such as water and electricity conservation techniques, rainwater harvesting, eco-friendly waste disposal and other processes. Trends in the industry in terms of products and services include use of paper bags instead of plastic bags, use of CNG, biodegradable detergents and soaps, environment friendly sprays, use of natural dyes, organic vegetables and fruits, non-polluting fuel and HCFC-free refrigerators are ruling the markets today. There is a new breed of green minded consumers who are opting for these environment friendly products. Currently, the number of these green consumers might be less but the future holds a strong possibility of increase in these green consumers. In general, green marketing is a much broader concept that can be applied to consumer goods, industrial goods and even services. Thus green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes as well as modifying advertising.

Concept of Green MarketingThere is a common perception among the general population that the term green marketing refers only to advertising or promoting products that possess environmental characteristics. People associate terms such as recyclable with green marketing. Green marketing, while incorporating these claims, is a broader concept. It includes not only altering the advertising of a product but also a variety of activities such as altering production processes, changing

packaging and modifying products. Polonsky defines green marketing as all activities

CONFE R ENCE PROCEEDINGS

VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1, 2011PP. 164 - 170designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment.

This question of why green marketing is important has increased in importance. It is quiet simple and relies on the basic definition of economics. Economics is the study of how people use their limited resources to try to satisfy unlimited wants. Thus mankind has limited resources on the earth, with which he must attempt to provide for the worlds unlimited wants. In market societies, where there is freedom of choice, it has generally been accepted that individuals and organizations have the right to attempt to have their wants satisfied. As firms face limited natural resources, they must develop new or alternative ways of satisfying these unlimited wants. Ultimately green marketing looks at how marketing activities utilize these limited resources, while satisfying consumes wants, both of individuals and industry, as well as achieving the selling organizations objectives.

Why Companies Going for Green MarketingWhen looking through the literature there are several reasons for firms increased use of green marketing. The possible reasons are mentioned herein below:

1.Moral Obligation: Organizations believe they have a moral obligation to be more socially responsible. Governmental bodies are forcing firms to become more responsible.

2.An Opportunity: Organizations perceives environmental marketing to be an opportunity that can be used to achieve its objectives.

3.Cost Factors: Cost factors associated with waste disposal, or reductions in material usage forces firms to modify their behaviour. Reduction of harmful waste may lead to substantial cost savings. Sometimes, many firms develop symbiotic relationship whereby the waste generated by one company is used by another as a cost-effective raw material.

4.Competitors Strategy: In many cases firms observe competitors promoting their environmental behaviors and attempt to imitate this behaviour. In some instances this competitive pressure has caused an entire industry to modify and thus reduce its detrimental environmental behavior. Competitors environmental activities pressure firms to change their environmental marketing activities.

5.Limited Resources: As resources are limited, it is important for the marketers to utilize the resources efficiently without waste as well as to achieve the organizations objective. Therefore, green marketing is inevitable.

6.Governmental Pressures: Various regulations are framed by the government to protect consumers and the society at large. The Indian government too has developed a framework of legislations to reduce the production of harmful goods and by products. These reduce the industrys production and consumers consumption of harmful goods, including those detrimental to the environment; for example, the ban of plastic bags in Mumbai, prohibition of smoking in public areas, etc.

Corporate InitiativesGreen marketing is a vital constituent of the holistic marketing concept. It is particularly applicable to businesses that are directly dependent on the physical environment; for example,

industries like fishing, processed foods, and tourism and adventure sports. Changes in the physical environment may pose a threat to such industries. Many Indian giants are now successfully implementing green marketing practices.

Infosys: Infosys is working to install lighting systems to make optimum use of daylight and attain maximum efficiency through artificial lighting. The company was also planning to procure green power to reduce emissions. Meanwhile, Infosys has replaced the old hardware with more energy efficient hardware. The new PCs and laptops the company is purchasing comply with environmental standards. Infosys has already started consolidating its server systems. The company has consolidated 185 individual file servers across the world into 33

Network Attached Storage infrastructures. For any future needs to increase the server capacity,they will be adding the disks to the Network Attached Storage infrastructure, instead of adding the file server.

Maruti: As part of its green city drive, Maruti Udyog Limited is working towards fitting compressed natural gas kits on all its petrol driven vehicles, including its bread-and-butter car Maruti 800. The company has already drawn up plans to promote CNG vehicles in Delhi in the current fiscal. CNG is a viable alternative fuel since it offers lower emissions and has an extremely low running cost with an average fuel consumption of 19.6 km/kg and cost of Rs

11.30 per kg.TESCO: TESCO is pumping $200mn into environmental technologies to reduce the amount of energy they use by 50 per cent compared with 2000 levels, by 2010. In addition to building 80 new eco-stores across Britain over the next year, the greenest of which will be constructed of recycled materials and will burn food waste for electricity, they are also making small changes that could have big results. They are paying customers not to use plastic bags which they expect would cut consumption by 25 per cent in two years.

Wipro: Homegrown companies like Wipro, too, are all for green products. The company, last year, launched a greenware range of desktops and laptops fully compliant as per the restriction of hazardous substances directive.

Titan Industries: It is adopting an eco-friendly process for recycling the discarded watches. It has launched an exchange offer where in an old watch bought from customers will be discarded in an eco-friendly manner.

Statement of the ProblemNo matter why a firm uses green marketing, there are a number of potential problems that they must overcome. One of the main problem is that a firm using green marketing must ensure that their activities are not misleading to consumer or industry, and do not breach any of the regulations or laws dealing with environmental marketing. Another problem that a firm faces is that those who modify their products due to increased consumer concern must contend with the fact that consumers perceptions are sometimes not correct. Take for example the McDonalds ongoing scientific debate, which are more environments friendly. Some scientific evidence suggests that when taking a cradle-to-grave approach, polystyrene is less environmentally harmful. If this is the case McDonalds bowed to consumer pressure, yet has chosen the more environmentally harmful option. When firms attempt to become socially responsible, they may face the risk that the environmentally responsible action of today will be found to be harmful in future. Take for example, the Aerosol industry, which has switched from chlorofluorocarbons to hydro fluorocarbons only to be told. Hydro fluorocarbons are also

greenhouse gas. Given the limited scientific knowledge at any point in time, it may be impossible for a firm to be certain that they have made a correct environmental decision. This may explain why firms like Coca-Cola and Walt Disney World, are becoming socially responsible without publicizing the point. They may protect themselves from potential future negative flashback, if it is determined that they made a wrong decision in the past. Many organizations want to turn green, as to increase number of consumers and to associate themselves with environmental-friendly products. But there are certain problems which are associated with green marketing such as: confusion among the consumers regarding the products; one often finds distrust regarding the credibility of green products; the technology involved in production and marketing of eco-friendly products is difficult to adopt due to huge costs involved. The additional costs involved may ultimately increase the price of the final product. This will cause a fall in the demand for the companys product reducing its customer base. For instance with the adoption of EURO I & EURO II standards by the car manufacturers in India, the prices of cars have risen sharply making them beyond the reach of average consumers.

All firms who undertake environmental marketing activities may not actually improve their behaviour. In some cases firms have misled consumers in an attempt to gain market share. In other cases firms have jumped on the green bandwagon without considering the accuracy of their behaviour, their claims, or the effectiveness of their products. This lack of consideration of the true greenness of activities may result in firms making false or misleading green marketing claims. One of the main problems is that firms using green marketing must ensure that their activities are not misleading to consumers or industry, and do not breach any of the regulations or laws dealing with environmental marketing. While governmental regulation is designed to give consumers the opportunity to make better decisions or to motivate them to be more environmentally responsible, there is difficulty in establishing policies that will address all environmental issues. There is a difficulty in measuring the ROI on green products. There are problems in understanding the application of regulations. Large capital manufacturing investments required to handle greener materials and greener investments. If firms make the packaging of their brands smaller, they may be at a disadvantage because of the reduced visibility of their brands on retail shelves. In this context, an attempt was made to assess the perception of 300 consumers about the green marketing practices of the select Indian companies.

Objectives of the StudyTo study the need and importance of green marketing in general.

To review the green marketing initiatives of the Indian corporates.

To study the perception of the consumers towards green marketing practices of the select

Indian companies.

To suggest suitable measures for the effective green marketing process of the companies.

Testing of HypothesisThe study is based on the formulation of the following null hypothesis. H0: The demographic variables of the consumers such as gender, age, educational status, and income, do not have any influence on their perception towards green marketing practices of the select Indian companies.

Research DesignThis study is empirical in nature based on survey method. The consumers of Wipro, Infosys and Titan Industries are selected for this study. As an essential part of the study, the primary data were collected from 300 consumers. The scope of the study is evaluating the perception of the consumers towards green marketing practices of the select Indian companies. By adopting quota sampling, 300 respondents i.e. 100 consumers from each company are selected. Questionnaire method was employed to collect the primary data. The secondary data were collected from journals, reports, books, and records of the companies. In order to study the perception of the consumers, chi square test, analysis of co-efficient of variation, multiple regression analysis, and percentage analysis were employed. The chi square test was employed to measure the association between the satisfaction levels of the consumers belonging to different demographic variables towards green marketing practices of the select Indian companies. The co-efficient of variation was employed to find out the consistency in the satisfaction level of the respondents towards green marketing practices. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the impact of the personal variables of the respondents on their satisfaction with green marketing practices.

Findings1.There is no significant relationship between the satisfaction levels of the respondents belonging to different gender, age, and education and the green marketing practices of the select Indian companies. However, a significant association is found between the satisfaction levels of the respondents belonging to different income groups and the green marketing practices.

2.The female respondents, respondents of the age group above 50 years, respondents belonging to postgraduate qualification, and respondents belonging to monthly income up to Rs. 25000 are highly satisfied with the green marketing practices of the select Indian companies.

3.The variation in the satisfaction level was high among the female respondents, among the respondents belonging to 31-40 years, among the respondents holding postgraduate qualification, among the respondents earning monthly income Rs. 25001-30000 with the green marketing practices of the select Indian companies.

4.The gender, age, educational status and monthly income of the consumers have no significant effect on their satisfaction with the green marketing practices of the Indian companies.

5.About 50 per cent of the respondents are highly satisfied with the green marketing strategies followed in product, price, promotion, and distribution functions of the select Indian companies.

6.Misleading the consumers, lack of wide publicity, proliferation of regulations and guidelines, and lack of truthfulness in advertisement are the problems of the consumers with regard to green marketing practices of the companies.

Suggestions1.The companies those practice green marketing must environmentally be responsible.

Because todays consumers are looking for more and they are looking at how the product addresses to different dimensions of sustainability, such as environmental impact, social impact, and economic feasibility.

2.In general, the customers are bothered about their own benefit and not on the profit of the company. For that reason, the companies shall make them to understand how they are benefited by using the product or service. Moreover, the companies need to judge whether the customers are educated enough or they are learning what it means to be green. When the consumers are still in the learning process, the companies can take efforts to teach them how using the product and service is beneficial as well as for the environment.

3.When the consumers understand the need of being environment friendly they will certainly purchase the company product or avail its service. Therefore, through consumer education, they can make a change in their decision and can stop using products that are harmful for the environment. Then the consumers will turn to the company knowing that it can help them do something for the planet even on local scale.

4.The advertisement of the company must address a relationship between a product or service and the biophysical environment to promote a green lifestyle by highlighting a product or service. Moreover, the advertisement must present a corporate image of environmental responsibility. Truth in advertising is critical. Therefore, the companies can do away with hype and promote the truth in their advertisements.

5.The best way to convince the customers is to offer proof. If the product or service do some good to the customer as well as to the environment it is great. Therefore, the company shall share the fact with people and what can be a better way other than offering proof.

6.Price is an important factor in the green marketing blend. Most consumers are prepared to pay additional value if there is a perception of extra product value. This value may be as a result of improved performance, function, design, visual appeal, or taste. Therefore the companies can take all these factors into consideration while fixing a premium price. The price of the product should meet the expectation of the customers. High-end customers often dont mind paying more and will never question about price. In order to attract the non-premium customers, maintenance of an affordable price rate is so important.

7.Sustainability initiatives and marketing is to be real and authentic. Corporate transparency is at this moment the way of the world. Consumers dont expect the company to be perfect, but they do expect to be honest. Therefore the companies should not mislead the consumers. Because around 62 per cent of the respondents opine that they are mis-leaded.

8.The ecological objectives of the companies in planning products are to reduce resource consumption and pollution and to upkeep of scarce resources. Furthermore, the companies can conduct global warming campaign to make wide publicity for green marketing.

ConclusionGreen marketing covers more than a firms marketing claims. While firms must bear much of the responsibility for environmental degradation, ultimately it is consumers who demand

goods, and thus create environmental problems. It must be remembered that it is the uncaring consumer who chooses to disposes of their waste in an inappropriate fashion. While firms can have a great impact on the natural environment, the responsibility should not be theirs alone. It appears that consumers are not overly committed to improving their environment and may be looking to lay too much responsibility on industry and government. Ultimately green marketing requires that consumers want a cleaner environment and are willing to pay for it, possibly through higher priced goods, modified individual lifestyles, or even governmental intervention. Until this occurs it will be difficult for firms alone to lead the green marketing revolution. It must not be forgotten that the industrial buyer also has the ability to pressure suppliers to modify their activities. Thus an environmental committed organization may not only produce goods that have reduced their detrimental impact on the environment, they may also be able to pressure their suppliers to behave in a more environmentally responsible fashion. Final consumers and industrial buyers also have the ability to pressure organizations to integrate the environment into their corporate culture and thus ensure all organizations minimize the detrimental environmental impact of their activities.

ReferencesChatterjee, Nandita (2008) Green Packaging: Its Need and Acceptance among the

Educated Consumers, Mangalmay Journal of Management and Technology.

Coddington, Walter (1993) Environmental Marketing: Positive Strategies for Reaching the

Green Consumer, New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.

Davis, Joel J. (1992) Ethics and Green Marketing, Journal of Business Ethics 11 (2): 81-87.

Keller, G. M. (1987) Industry and the Environment: Toward a New Philosophy Vital

Speeches 54 (5): 154-157.

Mishra Rohit Kumar: A Conceptual Framework on Green Marketing Bhubaneshwar.

Narayan, Vemuri Lakshmi and Babu, S. Dhinesh: Green Marketing New Hopes and

Challenges.

National Association of Attorneys-General (1990) The Green Report: Findings and Preliminary Recommendations for Responsible Advertising. USA: National Association of Attorneys-General.

Academia: An Ideal Practicing Ground forProcess Consultation Neha GuptaCentre for Leadership, Innovation, and Change (CLIC), Indian School of Business, India Rajeev KumarManagement Development Centre, Larsen & Toubro, IndiaWhat we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are.F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Crack-Up)AbstractIn todays era of accelerated change and uncertainty, there is an unprecedented need for teachers to play the role of a facilitator in developing the diagnostic and problem solving skills of the students. This is reflected in the course outlines of several reputed business schools in India and abroad, where the instructors often designate themselves as facilitators of learning and dissemination of knowledge. For instance, annual handbooks and/or course outlines of business schools namely Indian School of Business, Harvard Business School, Wharton Business School, Indian Institute of Management, and the like use the term facilitator for the course instructors to distinguish themselves from the traditional perception of a teacher who predominantly focuses on delivering her/his lectures with scant attention to problem solving capability building of the students.

A close look at the underlying characteristics of the teacher-student relationship reveals the implicit yet powerful correlation with Process Consultation. This paper explores the idea of application of process consultation in the educational institutions to foster individual (students) effectiveness. It attempts to extend the notion of consultation beyond conventional industry to classroom setting to develop the self-reflexive, self-analytic, and self-renewing skills of the students in the educational institutions.

Keywords: Process consultation; educational institutions; problem solving; capability building, students

IntroductionScharmer defines four levels of change namely 1) Re-structuring, 2) Re-designing, 3) Re- framing, and 4) Re-generating i.e. the deepest level of change which emanates from change in will/purpose. The greatest challenge encountered by the process consultants today is to help people and organizations access and operate from a deeper and more subtle level of organizational learning and change. (Schein, Kahane, & Scharmer, 2001). This paper attempts to extend the conventional approach to consulting to the classroom setting where teachers help the students uncover and develop their full potential and thus empower themselves.

CONFE R ENCE PROCEEDINGS

VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1, 2011PP. 171 - 185The rhetoric of holistic development of child is unvarying since times immemorial and the process consultation model can emerge as a viable method to bridge the reality-rhetoric gap in educational institutions. The impetus for this paper comes from the evidence of improvement in inter-personal relationships and performance of groups with the help of process consultation (e.g. Schmuck (1979), Schmuck et al. (1969), Friedlander (1967), Argyris (1965)). This paper argues that the application of process consultation in the educational institutions can enhance the effectiveness of the learners by fostering their self-reflective, self-analytic and self-renewingcapabilities.Inthisapproach,theteacherdoesntprovidedirect answers/solutions to the students for the immediate problems, but encourages a reflexive openness and honesty about how they are addressed (Cooke, 1997). Even though a process consultation model in pedagogy will have the merits of being more developmental in nature, and empowering students to solve their own problems (Schein, 1987); it is not suggested that the process approach can fully replace or merge with the current teaching practices.

Research LiteratureThere is ample evidence to prove that process problems can hamper the groups effectiveness. Maier and Solem (1952) demonstrated the negative impact of suppression of minority views in decision making in a group scenario. Zand (1972) has shown the adverse effect of mistrust on the ability of the group members to communicate, co-operate and make decisions, thereby impairing the groups performance. Hence, it is reasonable to hypothesize that a technique designed to remove or mitigate process problems can increase effectiveness of the group members (Kaplan, 1979).

Argyris (1962) established a connection between attention to process and work effectiveness. The study by Schmuck et al (1969) demonstrated the positive effects of multi-faceted process intervention at a school like improved teacher-principal relationship, lower teacher turnover, and an improved process in staff meeting. A large scale study of four types of OD interventions revealed that interpersonal process consultation had a positive effect on social variables like organizational climate, leadership, group performance, satisfaction. Although the performance was not explicitly measured, enhanced effectiveness can be induced from improved group process (Bowers, 1973). In another experiment, the groups that were trained using process consultation at an armed force R&D laboratory displayed greater personal involvement, mutual influence and group effectiveness (Freidlander, 1967).

In a laboratory experiment on undergraduates, quantitative problems were assigned to the groups. The results showed that groups using process analysis were more cohesive and functioned better but did not perform better than the control groups (Lipshitz & Sherwood,

1978). Kaplan (1969) found that the participants (undergraduate students) reported highersatisfaction from interpersonal relationships where the group task consisted of solving three cases on human relations.

Reviewing Process ConsultationThe intellectual roots of process consultation can be traced to the concept of group dynamics by Kurt Lewin in circa 1940s (Lewin, 1948). Edgar H. Schein, who is credited with the popularization of the term process consultation as well as its use as a consulting tool, defined it as 'a set of activities on the part of the consultant that help the client to perceive, understand, and act upon the process events that occur in the client's environment in order to improve the situation'

Nepalese Academy of Management (www. nam. org. np)

Nepalese Academy of Management (www. nam. org. np)