Sustainable marketing: Let’s accelerate transformations!

The sixth report put out by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is beyond alarming. It confirms that climate disruption is caused by human activity and that global warming of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels will be reached as early as 2030. Greenhouse gas emissions have warmed the climate at an unprecedented rate, and the impacts thereof will intensify (IPCC, 2023). A number of other planetary boundaries have been exceeded aside from climate disruption (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). The IPCC points to the consequences of unsustainable trends in our production, consumption and lifestyle patterns. In view of the urgency, a profound transformation is required not only of production and consumption models, but also of our relationship to time (Stroude, 2022). Given its pivotal position, at the interface between supply and demand, marketing has a crucial role to play in the way markets evolve. Marketing can and should be a player in creating a better world (Chandy et al., 2021; Dekhili, 2021; Mende and Scott, 2021). The relationship between marketing and sustainability is not new to the scientific literature. For example, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Journal of Marketing, Kotler (2011) called for the reinvention of marketing in order to meet environmental imperatives. In 2014, Beji-Bécheur and Özçağlar-Toulouse coordinated a special issue of the journal Recherche et Applications en Marketing on the topic of institutionalizing sustainable development and the emergence of sustainable marketing. Sustainable marketing is based on the premise that the influence and power of marketing and its tools can be used to develop and disseminate market and consumption models that are in line with environmental and social considerations. It involves purposeful action and a process that create value in a combined and systematic way (1) for companies, (2) consumers, and (3) society and the environment. In concrete terms, sustainable marketing consists of integrating sustainability considerations into the brand’s strategic vision and implementing them through the various dimensions of the marketing mix. It also entails supporting consumers to move towards sustainable consumption practices (Dekhili et al., 2021). This approach is in line with the definition of marketing promoted by the American Marketing Association since 2007 and the concept of positive marketing (Gopaldas, 2015). The challenges of sustainability call for a radical shift in marketing research in terms of its meaning and societal impact (Parguel et al., 2018), potentially leading to identifying new objects of study and new metrics. Analytical frameworks and research agendas specific to certain dimensions of sustainable marketing have emerged in recent years (e.g. Eckhardt et al., 2019; Vadakkepatt et al., 2021; White et al., 2019). The challenge now is to push our reflection on approaches and tools that will enable us to effectively integrate sustainability into core marketing practices and accelerate societal transformation: ‘how can we do better and faster?’ The answers to this question are being shaped in a post-pandemic (He and Harris, 2020) and inflationary (Blot, 2022; Rastello, 2022) context. This special issue of Recherche et Applications en Marketing is devoted to spotlighting marketing approaches and practices that can effectively help to step up societal transformation.