Are Green Products Beneficial to Consumers and Companies?

Owing to increasing consumption activities, environmental degradation has reached an unprecedented degree that may bring about some serious damage to environmental sustainability. As a result of this situation, the environment has become a vital issue that may influence both consumers and firms’ behavior. Increasing numbers of consumers have begun to realize that purchasing behavior has a direct impact on environmental protection, and require business to improve environmental performance (Manaktola and Jauhari, 2007). There is a number of evidence showing that awareness of environmental sustainability may result in a significant impact when purchasing. Moreover, some companies also try to pay more attention to environmentally friendly business strategies concerned with recycled packaging and green energy that may establish positive corporate images in society (Singh, 2011). Green products are such effective strategies that may promote companies’ social effectiveness and enhance revenue eventually. Briefly, green products have a beneficial impact on behavior of consumers and firms, such as increasing awareness of environmental protection, reducing consumption of natural resource, and the retarding the increasing speed of global warming (Chen and Chai, 2010). Although this is new around the world and may be beneficial to marketing fields, opponents of green products would argue that over-reliance of green products may cause some problems, such as green labels without any certification, abusing green strategies, and overwhelming advertisements about green products via the social media. This essay will investigate whether green products influence consumer’s awareness and firm’s marketing behavior. Although there are some issues such as the abuse of green labels and large amounts of advertising, green marketing strategies are generally effective for both consumers and firms.

There are three main definitions involved in the essay: green products, green marketing and consumer behavior. First, the definition of green products is the manufacture of products that will not pollute the environment, or waste resources and which can be recycled. It is probable that consumption cannot be avoided completely when manufacturing general products, however green products may save more energy than general products; even more this may probably cause no waste of energy and keep on going environmental protection. Second, green marketing is a company’s activities that are concerned with environmental problems in order to obtain consumers’ satisfaction (Soonthonsmai, 2007). Many firms are concerned about the importance of environmental sustainable advance currently, because of the social responsibility caused by awareness of green products when purchasing. Marketers should utilize this position to extend its brand popularity in order to occupy more market share. Third, consumer behavior is a study of how people engage in selecting, purchasing,