Enterprise and product tales were intertwined

In the next chapter I am interested in how the story lives in the company’s operating environment. The aim was to see what can be found in the company’s products related to the possibility of verification. Initially, I search for a product that already had arguments to describe the ecological features. Then I searched for the company’s value -related arguments.

The aim was to outline the company’s internal and external environment and how this environment is reflected in the ecoproductization phenomenon of ecological products on the one hand, and marketing opportunities on the other. I am searching for a solution to a company’s internal operational logic, which is shown outside the company.

Values can be raised by identifying the turning points, an understanding of the phenomenon should be resolved by describing, small business sustainable green marketing identity is thereby created. This initiative provides SMEs the possibility to meet customer ecoproductization relying on LCA as a language, the image of small business owners rely on technological ecological products as being the only option, but is this true?

One finding is that enterprise and product stories are rich and the multidimensional features of these should not be overlooked. Cases A-D highlighted strengths is an entrepreneur’s personal commitment to the product through production. The entrepreneur’s resources were spent mainly on producing the product. Marketing resources were scarce. Marketing was considered important and marketing had to do a periodical personal selling and advertising.

SMEs lacked marketing management systems and they did not use any tools developed for marketing design. However, interviews highlighted that the role of the entrepreneur’s activity was heavily involved in advertising the products. The problem arises when the client is usually separate from the channels of messaging. By integrating the product and the entrepreneur’s strategic initiatives, the environmental arguments were found. Splintered environmental arguments may be one cause of the reliability of an ecological product.

Narrative stories were tales of development of the entrepreneur and the product, which had a past, present and future. Company and product tales were intertwined and the tales supported one another. Through these stories, it was evident that the products carried the personality of the company. The products could be termed as she or he. However, from the empirical data, it was evident that the description of marketing and the description of production differ from each other. The production description emphasised the technical properties of the product. In all cases A-D the natural characteristic was community, which was evident in the company’s own operations, product production and the marketing of the product. Through these stories, concern and uncertainty were communicated in relation to cooperation to be engaged with the authorities, at the same time locality was seen as a resource.

In the cases A-D, the values have an effect on the ecological thinking of entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs brought up general values during the interviews and values are presented in the following text.

The interviewer asked questions concerning the themes around environmental values and ethical principles that guide the businesses. The enterprises answered shortly and in a list-like style. “FM-haus designs and builds business facilities according to customer needs

and follows the principles of sustainable development in building. The CEO wants to offer a way to build ecologically. Also life cycle analysis would be needed” (case C). “Makuliha has verbal contracts with the farms and all of the farms have been in quality training. Family entrepreneurship, taste, quality and the fact that the product is domestic are values of Makuliha. Using as little nitrites in the products as possible is important and only reasonable preservation is guaranteed. The products are not packed in small packages and instead are sold from service counters” (case B).

“Kala-Apaja supports new building in a traditional way to make the building look old. The surroundings are left as natural as possible. The service is retailed to customers and the aim is to offer real experiences, especially for children. The service also has an educational role. The most important commercial natural resource for the tourist industry is water, which provides possibilities for productization according to the seasons. This also offers an alternative for travelling, which is important for the business. In addition, the active use and involvement of nature was regarded as being highly valued in business. Using local services is considered important and understanding that everyone’s products are equally important in a network is also emphasized” (case A).

The values of Kiipula garden (case D) came up during the interview, because Kiipula Garden’s activities formed part of the foundation’s internal set of values and Kiipula foundation had published values for the entire organisation. Furthermore the values were published on the foundation’s website (table 29).

Table 29. Kiipula’s values from the web pages (data is published 14.2.2001).

Authenticity Special knowledge Developing

partnerships The joy of learning

Kiipula Garden is an educational garden with its own shop. The cooperation between students, staff and customers was evident in, for instance, openness, politeness and respect.

The garden had a quality and environmental system, the central contents of which were related to the production of the product. The system did not contribute to the educational garden history, rather it concentrated on describing the current situation. Some of the written values, such as the emphasising of quality education, were listed in the system just as was the participation of management, but Kiipula’s values (table 29) could not be found in a consistent manner from the manual.

When describing the SME’s operating environment, natural resources, rights of use, the cooperation of various stakeholders in the company’s operational environment, there may be a risk or potential as a growing resource.

The road is a 3.3-kilometre-long official village road which will use a hundred actors.

The village road is used in the everyday life of the people in the village and the road cuts through the land of the entrepreneur.

How the road can be understood as part of village life. In addition, environment and nature can be understood together, for example traffic noise can be at variance with river noise.

Description of small business and place history can be contacted by natural and human interaction. For example case A, The birth history of Kala-Apaja has its roots in the immediate surroundings. The company’s place of business was former Turpoo’s Mylly facilities from the 16th century and it included the 400-metres long Turpoonjoki River and rapid water section and Turpoo’s mill pond that had been created by a dam. Between the 17th and 18th century, the facilities had different owners and businesses. Present therefore was a message for a new entrepreneur and company activities. As business activities were present in the place earlier, the entrepreneur was faced with expectations of the surrounding village community.

The production orientated ecological communication shows the story of ecoproducts in the following way (case A).

The fish’s life cycle service includes familiarizing people with the brood fish stripping, introduction of production of juvenile fish, the growth of fish and catching and cooking of fish.

Life cycle assessment analysis thinking is a narrow interpretation of ecological thinking, because it focuses on the environmental impacts products and production processes have.

The theoretical starting point for LCA analysis is the thought that a product is damaging for the environment as soon as it is created. This language belongs to the production process and is essential in this environment. However, used alone it is not sufficient for marketing language. Sustainable development stories verify SME marketing arguments for ecoproducts and ecocriteria. Marketing language should be multidimensional ecological communication, which includes parts from LCA oriented production process language as well as elements from sustainable development language. Example of multidimensional language is part of the ecoproduct story of case A.

According to the interviewee, important principles in business are operating in a way that ensures the surroundings are considered, responding to customer requests and desire for ecological sustainability and making customers feel happy, making sure that fish is caught and that the company itself is easy to find from Häme.

Also respect for the cultural environment is evident in the following extract.

Heavy machinery is not used in the rapids of the river and the surroundings and history it carries is altered as little as possible. The old buildings give aesthetic character for the surroundings and are important for the development of business.

The goal of ecoproduct marketing strategy has to be functional integrity in the ecodesign of the product concept. Good ecological products meet the needs of retailers and buying customers and it needs to be taken into account in marketing planning.

Retailers are aware of the prices but “what other factors affect retailer’s decision such as the product information available¹” were issues that the interviewee pondered. It may be important for the retailer that the same product is not available from the shop next door.

The retailer wants to specialize using their products.

It can be questioned whether life cycle assessment analysis can be a functioning analysis tool in differentiating ecoproducts.

The added value of an ecoproduct includes the dimensions of sustainable development.

The previously mentioned issue is not included in the general marketing discussion at the moment. For this reason, it is justifiable to discuss sustainable green marketing and at the same time link environmental policy. Scientific theory opens cooperation between different actors in the national and international verified ecoproduct world. At the moment, entrepreneurs are very committed to ecoproductization but they have doubts concerning production.

In addition to own doubts, the interviewee worried about the experiences of customers if the company’s marketing was to be changed. It was unclear, for example, whether the word eco adds value for the product, how clearly it should be communicated and how issues relating to ecology are generally acknowledged.

If language used in marketing planning is linked to LCA language, pricing issues can be analysed through ecodesign. The differentiation of ecoproducts in relation to other ecoproducts can be researched in practice. Different enterprises emphasize different dimensions of sustainable development. At the moment, there is no solution for the situation.

Ultimately the retailer defines the price of the SME’s product and, hence, to make ecopro-ductization even possible, the retailer should be incorporated in the process.

Generally, ecoproducts are perceived as a unified group even though they can be differentiated by ecocriteria. Sustainable green marketing planning and marketing arguments include

verified ecocriteria. This helps the retailer’s environmental business and continues marketing communication towards the consumer.

Marketing of ecoproducts in international markets requires knowledge of ecological protocols, such as environmental standards, from SMEs. Marketing planning needs to recognize that the official language of different authorities often relates to production process and LCA thinking. The information authorities send is unclear for SME customers and LCA does not support positive marketing arguments. The reason for this is that the approaches are focused on damage-thinking and this causes confusion in markets for ecoproducts. The following extract illustrates this.

According to the interviewee, the Germans are environmental-conscious and the com-pany needed life cycle analysis in developing business. The life cycle analysis would have been important in international competitive markets. The company received support for the analysis, but found no-one to do it.

From the before mentioned follows that customers do not find sufficient reasons to buy ecological products. The next extract depicts this.

In entrepreneur’s opinion, the problem with voluntary efforts is that they are not valued.

The entrepreneur doubts that the customers are willing to pay more for environmental activity, which is shown to customers in the quality of operations e.g. certificates.

The entire life cycle chain of an ecological product has an effect on the interaction between the actor and the network. The following extract illustrates this.

During the interview, it also came up that the timber needed in building of stables is mainly certified, but the company purchases the timber from several suppliers so use of only certified material was perceived as a remote issue.

Finally, the goal of value based ecoproductization is to support the entrepreneur and the customer to find common language that supports the development of ecoproducts. Then ecoproducts can support the principles of sustainable development and regional, national and global welfare growth. The next extract depicts this.

The entrepreneur wishes that the customers perceive the company as adding welfare to animals as well as people. The images of a horse stable will define what kind of stable the customer buys because the purchase decision is not made by what kind of wood the stable is made of. For now, the customers are not interested in the environmental operations of the business, it is the environmental features of the end product that count.

Bringing social dimension of sustainable development into ecocriteria is a complex issue, because it analyses interaction between people. If an ecoproduct is, for example, produced in sparsely inhabited rural area and production increases employment, it can function as a marketing argument. However, negative aspects of official language should not be emphasized

in marketing communications e.g. by telling the unemployment rate. SMEs should describe this as ethical principle in order to use it in verified marketing arguments. Ethical principles are sensitive in nature and risks concerning the failing of marketing communication should be determined. The following extract illustrates this.

Nowadays, the vocational adult educational centre of Kiipula is the only educational centre in Finland that has specialized in training of adults with limited working ability in the gardening industry.

SMEs, which emphasize social dimension of sustainable development, often do not have resources to commercialise the social elements related to ecoproducts and the elements are difficult to verify as marketing arguments. On the other hand, the entrepreneurs want to emphasize official standard quality in ecoproductization but the standards do not sufficiently support the marketing needs of SMEs. Special ecological knowledge is needed for enterprises, which businesses are partly based on another line of business, for example, education. It is necessary that ecological thinking is realized in the social environment through standards.

Resources, such as time, used in standardization need to be allocated as monetary costs in practice. Different standards have different cost structures and for these not to be unreasonable for SMEs, the standardization could guide product differentiation. Financial profitability of ecoproducts is part of accepted activities in sustainable development. This can support economic welfare and wellbeing. The following extract depicts this.

The garden of Kiipula is an educational garden that has specialized in production in green houses. The quality and environmental systems ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 have been implemented in the garden of Kiipula in 2000 but these have not been audited.

Enterprises that function with social principle focus on the content of customer relationship and on the interaction in the relationship. The next extract illustrates this.

According to the interviewee, Kiipula is known to the consumers in the area. Some cus-tomers know about Kiipula’s background in rehabilitation and tours in the garden have been mutually favourable. The quality system has not affected the sales of cucumber.