Learning as We Go: Responsibility, Sustainability and the Marketing Function

Abstract

Organisations bear a graver responsibility than they regularly realise. This chapter expands the foregoing sentence through a reflection on what the other chapters have said – that marketers' responsibility should go beyond the sale of a product and should include the consciousness of the social and environmental consequences of the product and that responsibility should start with strategy and accompany the product or service from ideation to commercialisation. The messages going out from the company about its sustainability initiatives must also be ethical. The chapter also presents the book chapters' practical value for teaching, research and consultancy as well as for business application and policy making or policy advocacy. Finally, the chapter calls for generally acceptable standards to measure product greenness and for more self-regulation especially in less regulated regions. The overall message is that, through the marketing function, managers can and must orient the firm's internal dynamics towards embracing both business goals and the common good by taking all stakeholders into consideration and creating value to be shared by all.

Citation

Ogunyemi, K. (2022), "Learning as We Go: Responsibility, Sustainability and the Marketing Function", Ogunyemi, K. and Burgal, V. (Ed.) Products for Conscious Consumers, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 223-233. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80262-837-120221013