The role of firms in China's green marketing

In recent years, the Chinese Government has paid increasingly close attention to the issue of environmental management and one of the subsets of this issue is the concept of green marketing. Is it possible for Chinese companies to start to make use of green marketing concepts, principles and practices to produce a range of products and services, which can embody the concept of green marketing, within a rubric and context of sustained economic development and fast growth? A review of academically based literature indicates that most of the published research on green marketing has been done in developed countries. Green marketing issues in developing countries, especially in emerging developing countries like China, are far less common than in developed countries. The role firms can and will increasingly be required to assist China to develop a cleaner environment is not to be underestimated. It is one of the key issues that will face China in the next ten years. Yet, a review of the literature indicates that research on firms’ decisions and behaviour towards green marketing in China is seriously lacking. Given that green marketing is arguably where economic development and environmental matters tend to interact and intersect within a market economy, the aim of this paper is to explore how Chinese firms deal with this complex and important issue. Opportunities and challenges for Chinese firms are analysed using an environmental marketing model developed from the literature. These challenges are set against the current economic crisis and in relation to China’s specific political and socio-cultural dynamics