ISM AND ISEG MBA - Développement durable

The selling price can also prove to be a limit to Green Marketing, being frequently higher for an
ecological product which is environmental friendly, but not always being justified. Indeed, price
is very often the most important criteria in a purchase decision. Despite this phenomenon of a
generally higher price, many customers, of whom most are women, feel that such increase is
justified.
Companies are thus obliged to point out to their cherished customers that the generally higher
production costs associated with green production serve to justify the price tag.
This phenomenon is due to many factors: raw materials becoming scarcer; a lack of economical
production scale; a longer manufacturing process, the necessary investment to adapt their
production methods, etc. Unfortunately none of these phenomena justifying a higher price are
directly seen by the customer, who quite simply looses confidence. Consequently Green
Marketing reaches its limits where the company is unable to put forward easily verifiable cost
justification to its customer. For this reason some companies, realizing that they would never be
able to justify the higher selling price necessary when producing an ecological product, never
enter this production sector.
Finally, Green Marketing can have limits in terms of production volume. Consider the example
of a company which has made a conscious decision to downsize its production capacity in order
to reduce the volume of pollution and reject fewer waste products. In the event that this
ecological action promotes public interest in the company leading to increased sales volume,
market forces would incite the company to follow by increasing production, so breaking its
promise of sustainable development.
In conclusion it is seen that the Green Marketing phenomenon is relatively recent in the business
world (within the last 30 years). It is a new method of management which concerns every
industry and every department of each company, and that its application extends to include the
consumer who is becoming more and more interested in ecology. Due to this upsurge of interest,
ecological products compatible with consumer ideals prove extremely acceptable. On observing
this phenomenon, specialists have proposed various theories as to how sustainable development
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