Green marketing is a term that is used to refer to a corporation’s attempt to associate its products and its services with the environmental values and images. Usually the products and services are sold with an aim of benefiting the environment as well as creating a user friendly environment. To effectively achieve this target companies tend to produce their goods as well as packaging them in a way that the product portrays the image of being environmentally friendly. The major assumption of green marketing is to make the potential customers to view a product or a service in inform of greenness which acts as a benefit to the company since such potential assumption by the consumer influences the consumer to willingly pay more for greener products than they would for less-greener alternative product (Cox,10).
Green marketing is usually used for three major purposes which include; Product promotion or sales normally here it entails green product advertising where the products are advertised in an attempt to market products as having a minimal impact on the environment and to project an image of high quality including environmental sensitivity relating to the manufacturer’s record of compliance. The second reason for green marketing is for image enhancement which can be described as the use of advertising to improve the image or identity of a corporation reflecting its environmental concern and performance and finally green marketing is used for image repair which can be seen as a term which refers to a situation where the company tends to use its public relations to restore a company’s credibility after environmental harm or accident (Cox, 13).
Green washing can be termed as a practice where a company tends to make misleading claims concerning the environmental benefits of a certain product, service, technology or even company’s practices that do not really reflect the truth. Green washing tends to make a company appear more environmentally friendly when in actual sense it does not care about the benefits of a company being environmentally friendly.Company’s tend to use green washing in order to differentiate their products from their competitors (Cox,15).
Corporations can be used as major tool in conservation of the environment. This therefore concludes that corporations can actually help in conserving the environment through the following ways. To begin with, corporations can implement industry advocacy campaigns which are aimed at influencing legislation. Examples could be implementation of some policies such as the Pollution Trading Rights also called cap and trade which are legal mechanisms which can be used in market forces like supply and demand as leverage means to reduce pollutants caused by private industry. The best known policies which can be implemented by organization as way of conserving the environment is the pollution trading rights where efforts should be done by the corporations to reduce the amount of sulfur dioxide which is believed to be chief source of acid rain that is believed to have a negative effect on the environment (Cox ,25).
Furthermore the corporations can help the environment through arranging activities which allows the publics participation in environmental decision and this may include the study of citizens’ comments on national forests management plans, innovative models to conserve the forests using citizens’ recommendation, ways in which water quality in the Great Lakes can be conserved, educating the public on the major sources of pollution especially local communities. Corporations can put in place programmes which help in environment conservation such as toxic Release Inventory which is a database that makes available all the data collected annually on releases of toxic materials into the air and water. This will help in empowering citizens through information and holding the local governments and companies accountable (Cox, 30).
Another way through which corporations can help the environment is by the corporations involving themselves in free activities which are aimed at conserving the environment like tree planting in areas which have experienced deforestation due to cutting down of trees to create land for farming as well as for charcoal burning, fully implementing the environmental policies an example is National Environmental Policy Act which focuses on the involvement of the public in environmental decision making in a comprehensive manner.NEPA will help in the full disclosure of environmental matters both to the to the public as well as public hearings as well as creating opportunities for public comment (Cox, 45).
Corporations can also help the environment through the facilitation of Cooperative Conservations which requires agencies such as EPA to collaborate with private landowners when forming laws that apply to the areas. This will help in reduction of deforestation since the people will have a say in decisions which affects their lives. Furthermore the corporations can collaborate with partnerships such as Natural Resource Partnerships which is an informal working groups organized around regions with natural resource concerns.Moreover the organizations help in establishment of Community-based Collaborations which usually involves individuals and representatives of affected groups to address a specific, short-term problem in a local community concerning the preservation of the environment (Cox, 56).
In conclusion corporations therefore help the environment through fully participating in activities which are aimed at environmental conservation as well as implementing necessary policies which ensures that all the corporations adhere to and put in place necessary measures to conserve the environment
Environmental Justice refers to calls in recognizing and halting the disproportionate burdens that are imposed on the poor minority communities by the existing conditions. It can therefore be described as a movement which has its vision in creating an environmentally stable and health environment for all the communities. Environmental justice incorporates the more inclusive opportunities for all kinds of people to make decisions concerning the public. The environmental justice therefore is a movement with the aim of making the public recognize the quality of life for all and the need to understand that every individual has a right to safer and healthy place to live as well as to work regardless of the individuals race, colour, nationality.origin or income when it comes to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies (Cox, 66).
On the other hand the greater environmentalism movement can be defined as an advocacy movement which has a symbolic discourse aim of supporting the conservation and preservation of finite resources (Cox, 26).The Environmentalism movement therefore is a term referring to a movement which is concerned with the conservation of the environment on diverse, scientific, social and politic environment. Environmentalists therefore can be seen a form of activist for sustainable resource management and the protection of the natural environment by the implementation of changes in the public policy as well as individual behavior. Normally the campaigns of environmentalism are done through a mode of communication which is used by many agencies that are sometimes called information campaigns (Cox, 75).
Furthermore the campaigns for the environmental protection and conservation normally have three purposes which are aimed at larger audience, have a defined time limit and it involves a lot of organizational set of communication activities. These campaigns tend to differ from that of environmental justice since the most issues of the environmentalism are institutionally sponsored by such organization such as non-governmental organizations and other environmental organizations while the environmental justice mostly involve both communities of a nation and individuals participating in the call for creating an equally stable environment.In addition most public health campaigns done by the environmentalism seek to change the individuals attitudes and behaviors (Cox ,14).
Environmental justice advocates resist the label of greater environmentalism because the greater environmental movement which is just centered around ecology, health and human rights and the preservation of the green environment (Cox, 80). Furthermore the environmentalism movement is just concerned about the green environment without considering the concerns of the poor and minority which are sometimes seen as less serious due the implicit norms which are seen as important to the appropriate matters or environmental health or regulatory responsibility (Cox,90).This issue makes the environmental justice to resist the label of greater environmentalism since the environmental justice seeks the equality in the protection from both environmental and public hazards for all the people regardless of their race, income, culture and social class. Moreover it emphasizes on the disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences which may result from the consequences of industrial, land –use planning as well as the municipal and commercial operations (Cox, 91).
In order to bridge this gap the two movements should all understand that the conservation of the environment is for the benefit of all members of a society and the implementation of conservation should be aimed at making all the people participate in the conservation and protection including the poor. Therefore the environmental justice advocates and the greater environmentalism should all agree that environmental conservation is for and must aim at improving all the lives of all the people and not just concerned with the preservation of a greener environment with considering the quality of life for all the people since without considering quality of life for all the people then the issue of environmental conservation is of no use (Cox, 31).
In addition both the environmental justice advocates and the environmentalism movement should first define their objectives, audiences as well as strategies needed when carrying out such campaigns that concern the environment (Cox, 20). Furthermore the campaigns should be more effective and focus on more concrete objectives as well as ensuring a larger public demand on the support of the objectives. In addition these advocacy campaigns should try to achieve concrete victories by building public demand and by mobilizing support and by holding public officials etc accountable for the objective (Cox, 22).
One of the major challenges encountered the conceptualizing of both the environmentalism and the environmental justice is the differences in perceptions the two advocates have when it comes to the socio cultural influences like values, information bases and strategies.The other challenge is the difficulties incorporating the two movements to a manner in which the two movements can actually bring together their ideas to agree on one since each one has its different intentions as well as mission ( Cox ,28).
Works cited
Cox, R. Environmental Communication and the public sphere. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Pg 10-90 (2006).