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As emphasized in the previous chapter, sustainability marketing entails activities that include all levels of management in small and medium enterprises; that is, strategic, operational and tactical. The role of marketing activities of a sustainable nature involves building customer satisfaction and generating profit for an enterprise, while simultaneously taking into consideration the impact of such activities on society and environment as a whole. Combining all those areas poses a serious challenge to contemporary SMEs. Nevertheless, an effective use of sustainability marketing principles enables companies to achieve the above-specified tasks and gain a strong position in the market over the long term. The nature of the relationship established with various market entities ensures that strong position, because the use of sustainability marketing is equivalent to adopting a relationship-oriented attitude.

Fulfilling the tasks of sustainability marketing requires the employment of tools from the sustainability marketing mix, which comprises the following: sustainability in product, price, distribution, promotion and personnel. The adoption of sustainable development principles by SME marketing departments does not fundamentally change the basic properties of the tools in the mix, that is their complementarity and the resultant synergy effect, but it expands the scope of their impact on the society and environment. This chapter presents a discussion on the nature and specificity of individual tools in the sustainability marketing mix.

Adopting the concept of sustainable development is connected with the necessity of redefining marketing strategies and, as a consequence, should also be reflected in the policies adopted for the individual tools. In this chapter, the sustainability marketing mix is considered with regard to five instruments: product, price, place, promotion and people (5P). The aim of the chapter is to investigate the current state of knowledge in this matter as well as the scope for the implementation of the sustainability marketing concept in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the food and drink sector from an international perspective. The international approach has been adopted to try and find out whether in more highly developed countries sustainability marketing activities are comprehensive and include all the marketing tools; and, on the other hand, whether in less-developed markets sustainability marketing activities are limited to the tools for which the concept of sustainable development can theoretically be implemented the most easily, namely, promotional activities and those targeted at a company’s own employees.

Each of the analysed instruments was described from two angles: in terms of the results obtained for the whole research sample, indicating the countries whose respondents had the highest and lowest values for the specific variables defining each marketing mix instrument and in terms of a comparison of two groups of countries, indicating similarities and differences in the opinions of managers on the use of marketing mix instruments in a sustainable way. The chapter concludes with the results obtained through factor analysis, which made it possible to identify the ways in which SME managers in the food and drink sector define the individual sustainability marketing tools.

The extant literature provides much-needed support to understand marketing accountability and how marketing actions are related to financial performance (FP). However, we have limited understanding of the relationships between marketing actions and firms' social performance (SP) and environmental performance (EP). Understanding these links is critical to enhancing sustainable FP, SP, and EP. Moreover, the literature provides limited understanding of the measures by which SP and EP may be operationalized, or the data necessary to reach a conclusion. This study bridges these gaps by extensively reviewing the extant literature to offer a set of measures and data sources to operationalize SP and EP, and empirically show their relationships with marketing actions. We find that greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, environmental disclosure score, waste reduction, energy consumption, and recycling are prominent measures of EP, and that social disclosure score, philanthropy or community spending, and diversity of gender and race are prominent measures of SP. The KLD, ASSET4, and Bloomberg are prominent sources of data that can be used to operationalize SP, to which CDP may be added for EP. We also show that marketing actions positively affect EP and SP. This study contributes to the extant literature on SP and EP by identifying measures and data sources and linking marketing actions to both performance types. It contributes to policy development by identifying the importance of EP and SP and how marketing actions can help achieve such performance.

Contemporary companies are operating under challenging and volatile circumstances, but at the same time they are also conditions which provide companies with powerful opportunities on an unprecedented scale. Marketers have a key role in the process of facing these challenges. By taking a lead in the process of implementing sustainability into marketing strategies, they can create sustainable company growth. The success of this process is determined by whether or not the concept of sustainability marketing becomes fundamental in the company. Sustainability marketing should be embedded at the heart of any corporate strategy and become integral to that strategy, not just a part of it or to supplement it. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the influence of the sustainable development concept on marketing strategy. To begin with, the chapter examines how the development of this concept influenced the understanding of the essence of the functioning of modern enterprises. Next, the process of managing an organization in the context of sustainable development as well as the idea of a company’s sustainable market orientation as a source of its financial and market success are discussed. The final part focuses on identifying the role of marketing in implementing the concept of sustainable development as well as clarifying the assumptions of sustainability marketing.

This chapter investigates the awareness and level of implementation of the sustainability marketing concept in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in selected Western European and Central-Eastern European countries. This study will focus primarily on comparing the Western and Central-Eastern European countries combined in respective country groups. The data underlying this evaluation were gathered as part of an international research project by surveying SME managers in six European countries. The chapter will assess whether the main hypothesis of the research project – that there is a significant positive correlation between awareness and level of implementation of the sustainability marketing concept and a country’s level of socio-economic development – is accurate. The main hypothesis will be verified based on individual sub-hypotheses. The findings from this verification process will clearly reveal that the main hypothesis is applicable. The following chapter is organized as follows. First, managers’ attitudes towards sustainability marketing are described. Second, managers’ knowledge on the concept of sustainability marketing is presented. The final part focuses on the implementation of sustainability marketing concept and the significance of sustainability marketing for corporate strategy over time.

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of sustainability marketing on brand loyalty of brands that advertise their sustainable development agenda goals. The study highlights the mediating effect of brand love having cognitive antecedents of brand authenticity, popularity and congruence with private and social self of the consumer.

A mall intercept survey was used to collect data from consumers who use brands that embrace sustainable marketing strategies. Only those brands were selected which are popular as well as advertise sustainable practices in their brand communication (mainstream and social media). The data was self-administered by trained research assistants, who gathered data from a sample of 350 respondents.

The findings revealed that the popularity and authenticity of a brand play an essential role in developing brand love and later influences brand loyalty behavior. A larger effect is seen on brand love when there is congruence of private and social self with the brand. The brand has even a stronger relationship with brand loyalty when moderated by sustainability marketing.

Brand love has the potential for long-term influences, only if sustainability marketing is used as a backbone. Brand managers should target an authenticity-seeking segment of consumers, who once convinced can lead to repeat business and brand loyalty and reduce dissonance. As sustainability marketing provides multiple benefits, genuine branding strategies should be devised that amalgamate into a single message spun around sustainability concerns and connecting the ethos of authenticity, popularity and self-expression. Future research may take into consideration more categories than this study on clothing, and consumer goods, adopting a mixed-methods approach. Moreover, a range of potential antecedents of brand love can be determined along with potential outcomes when aligned with external efforts such as sustainability, corporate social responsibility and international investment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating the moderating role of sustainability marketing on the relationship between brand love and brand loyalty and the mediating role of brand love between brand authenticity, popularity, social/private-self-expression and brand loyalty. It is also the first study documenting how sustainability marketing reinforces the brand loyalty for popular brands in developing countries like Pakistan. This study fills a research gap as it expands the existing literature on sustainability marketing and brand love that is generally focused on brand dimensions and not the brand communications and thus has not reached similar results.

Seeking ways towards a sustainable future is the most dominant socio-political challenge of our time. Marketing should have a crucial role to play in leading research and impact in sustainability, yet it is limited by relying on cognitive behavioural theories rooted in the 1970s, which have proved to have little bearing on actual behaviour. This paper aims to interrogate why marketing is failing to address the challenge of sustainability and identify alternative approaches.

The constraint in theoretical development contextualises the problem, followed by a focus on four key themes to promote theory development: developing sustainable people; models of alternative consumption; building towards sustainable marketplaces; and theoretical domains for the future. These themes were developed and refined during the 2018 Academy of Marketing workshop on seeking sustainable futures. MacInnis’s (2011) framework for conceptual contributions in marketing provides the narrative thread and structure.

The current state of play is explicated, combining the four themes and MacInnis’s framework to identify the failures and gaps in extant approaches to the field.

This paper sets a new research agenda for the marketing discipline in quest for sustainable futures in marketing and consumer research.

Approaches are proposed which will allow the transformation of the dominant socio-economic systems towards a model capable of promoting a sustainable future.

The paper provides thought leadership in marketing and sustainability as befits the special issue, by moving beyond the description of the problem to making a conceptual contribution and setting a research agenda for the future.

The paper aims to make a contribution by providing a comprehensive understanding of the scope of the implementation of sustainable marketing tools in SMEs operating in the food and drink industry in Europe. The focus will be put on the identification of differences between companies operating in business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) context.

The empirical basis is a survey of 770 European SMEs, of which 369 operate in Western European countries (including UK, Germany and Spain) and 401 in Central and Eastern Europe (including Poland, Croatia and Russia). The respondents in the particular countries were stratified according to company size, measured by the number of employees. The research covered 316 micro companies, 5 small companies and 209 medium ones. The questionnaire was completed by the managing directors of the enterprises (CEOs) or heads of the marketing departments (CMOs). The research was conducted between April 2016 and January 2017. An in-depth analysis of the findings helped to identify differences between the two groups of SMEs, i.e. operating in the B2B and B2C context, in terms of the extent of sustainable marketing implementation. The non-parametric U Mann–Whitney test was used to examine the significance of the differences between the two groups of companies.

The research results suggest that both groups of B2B and B2C companies implement sustainable marketing tools to some extent. However, in most cases, B2B organizations do it to a significantly greater extent. Nevertheless, these activities relate mainly to those tools, which are directly visible to customers, both institutional and individual, such as packaging, product ingredients or certificates. To a lesser extent, they involve marketing activities of an internal nature, such as production process and the level of energy, water or resources used.

To the best knowledge of the author, this is the first empirical research study on the implementation of the sustainable marketing concept in SMEs operating in European countries. The study is a comparative analysis of the phenomenon between B2B and B2C companies, which has not been previously researched.