Sustainable Marketing, Branding and CSR in the Digital Economy

Abstract

Sustainable marketing practice is essential for developing a more comprehensive understanding of consumers’ purchase decisions in dynamic digital marketing environments. Scholars and practitioners conceive sustainable marketing practices as episodic, predicated on temporal practices in response to emerging digital environments. Consumers are increasingly becoming aware of the ecological issues that their consumption creates in the marketplace. Despite the importance of sustainable practices, when and how sustainability occurs regarding the consumer’s purchase decision remains largely unexplored. In part, this is because the practices of sustainability in the emerging computer-mediated marketing environments (CMMEs) are difficult to anticipate and study. Much of what we know about sustainable marketing practice is mainly focused on customer–brand relationships. Prior literature examining sustainable marketing practice through CMMEs remains sparse, despite consistent emphasis on the benefits of sustainable marketing practices in the emerging digital world.