Green Paper and IPP encourage using tools for SMEs

The competitive advantage of an SME can be enhanced by developing tools to support decision making. SMEs use many development tools. For example, project results show that 127 Austrian SMEs studied used multiple tools, utility value analyses, among others (figure 9). The situations of SMEs differ from one another in different EU countries. What is problematic is which environmental indicators SMEs can use marketing arguments or which ones are even possible to use (Masoni & Buonamici 2006:325-327).

Figure 9. Usage of development tools in Austrian SMEs (Institut für Industrielle Ökölogie (IIÖ 2003:114)

As Masoni and Buonamici (2006) claim, the expressed needs in SMEs are knowledge, information and training. In practice, this means procedures and tools adapted to SME characteristics, a guide to choosing the most suitable solutions, public supportive measures, and support from consultants or other mediators. So far, IPP and environmental management tools are not generally diffused through SMEs, nor are they perceived as competitive

opportunities. SMEs have many barriers to IPP, but on the other hand IPP can help SMEs to overcome the difficulties they encounter with radical product innovations. The changes in technology paradigms are very difficult for SMEs. Modalities of marketing concept development and product design stimulated by IPP are in accordance with the culture and structure of the SME, and can also lead to new radical marketing product innovations. A gradual creation of a market of ‘green’ products for SMEs requires a governance system, a transition phase based on public support accompanying measures and demonstration activities, with close relations with public – private parties already working in the market of innovation products (Masoni & Buonamici 2006:325-327). All of this requires from SMEs the capability to manage the marketing for the enterprise. Through legislation, the marketing of the enterprise has obligations and expectations, in the background of which is large enterprise cooperation and the possibilities for small enterprises to influence are poorer.

All enterprises, not only SMEs, are today obliged to comply with a number of environmental rules that regulate both processes and products (licensing, emissions, etc.). Therefore it is very important for SMEs that IPP should not introduce new obligations, but instead offer the opportunity to simplify and rationalize the management of all the environmental issues with possible integration with existing regulations. This is possible by means of simplified and low-cost tools and methodology evaluation, in particular the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), simplified certification and validation systems and focusing on continuous and verifiable improvement of the environmental performance of product life cycles. As a basic tool for the evaluation of sound scientific environmental information for products, LCA requires a lot of validated and structured data about materials, processes, energy, waste recovery, and so on.

Correspondingly, marketing management requires a systematically gathered environmental data management system, from which data starts from data creation, data collection and storage via data processing and packaging ultimately to data delivery (Masoni & Buonamici 2006:328-330). In order to ascertain the weakness of marketing opportunities of SMEs from the theory, research based on experience is required.

3 Sustainable green marketing 3.1 Philosophy of ecoproductization

In sustainable marketing, values can be emphasised into the operational environment of the enterprise, as for instance, values related to cultural and social interaction. In addition, green marketing emphasises technological expertise as a value for specifying product characteristics. Values are concretised during productization and are used as a competitive edge. Consequently, sustainable marketing does not strongly emphasise societal responsibility which would achieve the competitive edge. According to Daub and Ergenzinger (2005:998-1024 edited Polonsky 2005), customer satisfaction is nevertheless achieved using societal responsibility, which can be benefitted in sustainable management. This type of marketing is called sustainability marketing, but in this study and chapter, sustainable marketing is discussed from the perspective of ethical activity and the cultural environment.

Values are the ideas and beliefs that influence and direct our choices and actions (Gini 2004:34). Values are shaped by personal beliefs, developed through study, inspection

and consultation with others and a lifetime of experience (George 2003). Thus, enquiries conducted in a research mode are usually to do with values, and it is very difficult to capture the nuances of opinion associated with questions of value through the precise formulation of questionnaires (same result as McNiff 1995:78). We also have a specific cultural-based code of values that influences our way of behaving. The great importance of values should not be ignored, because they have an effect on the decision-making processes both on individual and communal levels. In the workplace, for example, value settings can affect decisions about whether to join an organization, organizational commitment, relationships with co-workers and decisions about leaving an organization (Alas et al. 2006:270).

It is interesting that in the background of technology-based ecological product development are Thompson’s value studies and the applications of such. Hofstetter (1998) and Hofstetter et al. (2000) have used Thompson’s (1979) and Thompson et al. (1990) theories of value in the development of LCA. Hofstetter (1998) and Hofstetter et al. (2000), have focused on the ecology of the production process and its improvement. Therefore, a central issue has been the harmful environmental aspects and damage thinking. The theories and ideas developed by Thompson can be used from a different perspective. The dimensions of sustainable development and Thompson’s (2002) theories do have a connection and the theories of Thompson (1979, 2002, 2005, Thompson et al. 1990) theories are connected in finding value-based durable ecological decisions.

The basic idea behind the rubbish theory (Thompson 1979) is that there are two mutually exclusive cultural categories that are “socially imposed” on the world of objects: a transient category³ and durable category⁴ (figure 10). If these two categories exhausted the material world then the transfer of an object from one of the other would not be possible (because of the mutual contradiction of the categories’ defining criteria). But, of course, they are not exhaustive; they only encompass those objects that are valued, leaving a vast and disregarded realm – rubbish – that, it turns out, provides the one-way route from transience to durability (Thompson 1979:10). Once produced, a transient object will decline in value and expected life span, eventually reaching zero on both. In an ideal world, the object would then, having reached the end of its usefulness, disappear in a cloud of dust. But often this does not happen;

it lingers on in a valueless and timeless limbo (rubbish) until it is “discovered” by some creative and upwardly mobile individual and transferred across into the durability category (Thompson 2005:2).

Figure 10. Value objects and the possible transfers between them (Thompson 1979:10 & 2005).

3 A transient category = the members of which have decreasing value and finite expected life-spans.

4 A durable category = the members of which have increasing value and infinite expected life-spans.

Rubbish theory says that the concept of culture is a sort of rule book common to all the members of a society, a collection of shared habits everywhere in the society and always constraining and challenging the actions and behaviour of the society’s members. According to Panula (2000:57), environmental marketing should emphasise a more active ecological way of thinking. The other way to see this culture is on the level of individual; that there are, as it were, as many cultures in relation to any society as there are members of that society (Thompson 1979:59). As values have such a great cultural aspect, they also make decision making more complex, for example, in managing sustainable marketing. Value-based marketing has to take into consideration such things as national and regional approaches in the global environment. For example, marketing strategies and actions can strengthen values in different ways and values can be used in the sustainable marketing.

An understanding of the nature of rubbish is clearly essential if we are to analyse the dynamic that related tolerance, intolerance, and the contradiction of the universe of objects, to the stability and instability of social systems. In this way, it is possible to define rubbish without stumbling into any unseen pitfalls (Thompson 1979:87).

The values inside the product have to be verified so that they can become convincing marketing arguments. Ecoproductization eco-criteria need to be open, transparent and flexible, and this means the demand to put these ecological values into the form where they can be objectively observed. Open marketing argumentation and concretizing the values that are behind the product even make it possible to conduct consumers’ ways of thinking and doing. This is possible within the limits of sustainable development (Partridge 2003).

Rubbish theory emphasizes that it is important to remember that waste is not the same as rubbish (Thompson 1979). Waste is still under the thrall of scarcity: if it hadn’t been scarce to start with it couldn’t have been wasted. For example, once fresh water has been defined as scarce, every drop of it that reaches the sea is a drop wasted (Thompson 2005:2). The process of wasting can also be lengthened, in a way that the product is not wasted as soon as it becomes useless for its original purpose: it will be used in other ways. In this way, the components of passive ecoproductization can also become active. This idea of scarcity and wasting can also be modified with ecoproductization: once some more special ecologically produced object has been defined as scarce and something valuable, every unused product is a product wasted. Some plants can be defined as weeds and are therefore treated that way, but when they have medical or some other wellbeing characteristics they suddenly become desirable and valuable products. Rubbish theory is a way to clarify this change from the non-valuable category into the non-valuable one.

Culture theory (Thompson et al. 1990) claims that one main argument of the cultural theory is that one cannot effectively analyse the interaction between the people and nature from the theoretical frame that allows only two points of view (socio-cultural and natural sciences). Because of this, Thompson et al. (1990) suggest that we have to build a decision-making process from the “talk” that is prevailing in the society. This is a way to implement the principles of sustainable development into democratic decision making (Thompson 2005). It is also a question of the world of power and respect (e.g. dialectical balance Willamo 2005), where decision making appears in different cultures and social structures as complex networks. Because of this, one can state that there is not only one way to carry out the sustainable development at national level, even though the targets of decision-making would

be convergent. For this reason, developing of ecoproductization marketing arguments should start from the national level, which takes into consideration national and regional culture and circumstances. On the other hand, one should make sure that in the process of globalization the components of a product should remain and also be protected, for example, the exact origin of a product.

Values are closely linked with behaviour, the decision or action and value has a relationship between the person who evaluates and the evaluated object. An evaluation as an empiric fact, therefore it always depends on three relations (connections) thinking in relative terms:

subject, place and the moment of the evaluation. A value judgment must be also expressed by a subject. In value judgment, the statement underlying the evaluation gets its legitimization from the fact that it does not get on purely individualistically, but is maintained by the validity of the value (figure 11, Bechmann 1978:145-157). There are five dimensions of value judgment: Value dimension, the impersonality, bottom line, the concept frame and the demand character.

Figure 11. Dimensions of a worth statement (Bechmann 1978:145-157).

The ecophilosophical question is which one of the principles of sustainable development rises up as a strong signal in value-based ecological production? Although values have stable characteristics it is not easy to change non-valuable into valuable without concrete efforts (Thompson 1979). Value trade-offs vary between ecological, social, cultural and economic dimensions (Thompson 1979, 2002, 2005, Thompson et al. 1990), which mean the implementation of monetary goals in addition to non-monetary goals. The weights for values are set and defined in the operational environment. The operational environment of ecoproductization sets the frames for ecoproductization development. The values are formed and evolve in an operational environment by different actors such as customers, institutions and entrepreneurs. The customer buys the product, if the product is regarded as being useful, the entrepreneur produces it, if it is needed and institutions give guidelines for the development and prioritize official guidance, if they experience the issues important.

This forms a value environment where multicriteria decision making is needed. Decision-making processes should be designed in a way that allow these factors to be integrated into

the traditionally closed, internal processes by which enterprises reach their decisions (Earl &

Clift 1999:270).

Environmental marketing encountered the same problems as the marketing field in general. Basic problems can be divided into four categories. Sales orientation marketing, the environment is only used as a selling point without an analysis of the product at all, or the impact of the product on the environment. Compartmentalism corporate organizations do not communicate with each other enough. In this case, environmental issues are taken into account in a single department, such as the marketing department, but a comprehensive approach is avoided. Finance oriented marketing focuses only on improving short-term profits and saving costs. Longer-term image building creates a lukewarm attitude towards sustainable development. Conservatism companies do not want to take risks, but they want to retain the old corporate culture. Acts of environmental marketing development are marginal. These problems are difficult to utilise in environmental marketing (Peattie & Crane 2005:359–360).

Green spinning is commonly used in areas where the products are environmentally friendly, in principle, incompatible with the values (such as oil and automobile industries).

Companies react to negative feedback from the public obtained by polishing the corporate image as environmentally friendly as protecting its own reputation and risk management.

Green conservatism is spinning, and does not want to develop its own greening activities across organizational boundaries such as product development (Peattie & Crane 2005:361).

From the perspective of sales of green products, the green values satisfy demand. Greening was found to increase demand and add value to the product. In this case, the finished products are added afterwards in the manufacture of the product, taking into account environmental considerations as well as the product of positive meanings of the environment. These issues must be picked just for marketing purposes and are not developed for the actual needs of customers or the environment in mind. A product re-launched on the market as an environmentally friendly product, even though the image may be deceitful can lead to fears of companies using green values in their marketing potential of a negative image (Peattie &

Crane 2005:361).

Green harvesting is a way to pass the cost savings benefits from the environmentally friendly business activities. When savings were discovered to reduce the use of natural resources, based on changes in the production or supply chains, this may be regarded as being environmental friendliness (Peattie & Crane 2005:362). Environmental marketing needs to take into account environmental considerations accurately in product development. Its weak point is the customer’s need for a bad evaluation.

If environmental perspectives are only taken into consideration in product development, then it is natural that the perspective of satisfying customer needs will get less attention.

Environmental information and customer willingness created through product development changing consumer habits has been found to be merely an assumption. Just as the assumption that consumers are willing to pay more for the products. According to Peattie and Crane (2005), the findings obtained from research were based on unrealistic situations and the responses of people mainly illustrated a willingness to impact the environment, as opposed to their possible practical measures to protect it. Markets and customers were not ready to purchase a sharp change of behaviour. Although studies have shown that customers wanted

ecofriendly products that not specific targets to satisfy this need to be analyzed. Products have not been interesting, necessary, or they were too expensive to penetrate the market.

The value of the product to the customer is found to be more important than respecting environmental considerations (Peattie & Crane 2005:363).

Compliance means the marketing of their businesses, which does not make environment protection measures more than those necessary according to law. With sanctions induced by ”environmental tasks” however, the companies advertise prominently. When companies advertise their environmental friendliness, they are simultaneously fighting for the future changes and slow down sustainable development (Peattie & Crane 2005:364).

Environmental marketing contains so many false interpretations of the problem and the use of the term and the benefits begin to change into questions, which means in the management of change, value-based thinking and positioning has a structural and prioritising impact.

Without an understanding of technology-based marketing, the objectives of sustainable marketing may not be attained, using which the way of thinking for the value of the product satisfies customer desires, needs and expectations. Companies have already begun using sustainable marketing as a new way to express the company’s proximity to nature and its consideration of marketing.