Journal of Sustainable Marketing

Transformative Sustainable Marketing

The most circular strategies are Refuse, Rethink, and Reduce, which all fall into Transformative Sustainable Marketing. Many marketing, particularly critical, humanistic, and macromarketing, scholars have dared to question the ideology of consumption (Kilbourne, Mcdonagh, & Prothero, 2018). The most circular strategy in Potting et al.’s (2017) classification is Refusal of consumption. Refuse, Rethink, and Reduce get to the heart of what we know about marketing myopia and service-dominant logic. It is a call to question the need for ‘stuff’ when we are after the benefits and services provided. Other related concepts of anti-consumption, especially reclamation behaviors (Chatzidakis & Lee, 2013), mindful consumption (Bahl et al., 2016), voluntary simplicity (Ballantine & Creery, 2010), and wider societal shifts towards sharing (Belk, 2010) should provide a wealth of insight into consumer lifestyles and the shifts needed. Consumption has embedded cultural, social, and historical meanings, intertwined with the habitual everyday practices of ordinary citizens, thus social practice theory will also provide insight into system change (Shove, Pantzar, & Watson, 2012). At the same time, we must also consider the social implications of circular lifestyles – who wins? Do some individuals lose? We see serious considerations about the impact of Airbnb on the hotel industry (Zervas, Proserpio, & Byers, 2017), Uber on the taxi sector (Skok & Baker, 2019), and are starting to question what type of (meaningful) work is available in the circular economy (Corvellec, Stowell, & Johansson, 2022).

(Hobson, 2022) urges scholars to consider the impacts on the everyday, “our [citizen-consumer] roles are being framed and played out; what is illuminated and what is hidden by such framings; and who gains what, how, and to what ends is a central” (p.173). So, let’s question the framings and the roles of the transition. Given that “the dynamics of prevailing economic systems are apparently not up for grabs in the CE” (Hobson, 2022, p.167), let’s see how the Top 3 circular strategies of Refuse, Rethink, and Reduce can provide starting points for a rethink of the capitalist, neoliberal economic system. COVID-19 forced individuals to consume less and differently, and spend more time ‘experiencing’ (walking, baking, cooking, knitting), and forced production to halt completely, slow or diversify their offerings. Questions around how we can shape markets to ensure circularity are slowly emerging (Fehrer et al., 2023; Mattsson & Junker, 2023) and more reflection is needed to understand and influence institutional change.

Reformative Sustainable Marketing

Next, is Reformative Sustainable Marketing which includes the strategies of Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, and Repurpose. While product and service design are still embedded in our first-year undergraduate marketing courses, in most universities it has become a separate department and discipline. So, let’s take back some ownership of product and service design. Here, marketers can influence how products are made. We should be teaching our students about the biological and technical flows to ensure product and service design is circular. We can do this through making it the new ‘normal’ - that cradle-to-cradle design (Braungart, Mcdonough, & Bollinger, 2007) is ‘standard’ and how we should be designing all products. Movements such as the ‘right to repair’ (including repair cafes), the rise of plastic-free or zero-waste grocery stores, and regulatory changes towards regulated product stewardship will only make Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, and Repurpose more important (and sometimes mandatory) for marketers to integrate within their strategy and practices (Kemper, Spotswood, & White, 2023).

Most research on the circular economy tends to consider the consumer as an afterthought. A true product orientation – if you build it, they will come – has taken shape of some circular economy literature, and while others acknowledge the need for consumer behavior, rarely is it discussed how we get there. So, this is a call for marketers to conduct research on consumer perceptions, behaviors, and more importantly – practices, towards Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, and Repurpose. We know that there are several factors that influence consumer acceptability of circular economy initiatives, such as knowledge, beliefs, product experiences, aversion of risk, and product characteristics (Camacho-Otero et al., 2018; Guo, Geng, Sterr, Zhu, & Liu, 2017; Wang & Hazen, 2016). For example, environmentally conscious (Grasso & Asioli, 2020; Mccarthy, Kapetanaki, & Wang, 2020), status seeking, convenience oriented, and price conscious consumers (Mccarthy et al., 2020) were more likely to buy waste-to-value products. Related to the five strategies within Reformative Sustainability Marketing, when consumers buy refurbished, remanufactured, or repurposed products, there are well known disgust reactions and concerns about contamination (Meng & Leary, 2021). How can we alleviate these reactions and concerns? Equally, how might we reconsider the concept of disposition (Jacoby, Berning, & Dietvorst, 1977) to understand how consumers deal with products that are at the end of their useful life, but that could be refurbished or repurposed for future use?

It is also important to consider the terminology of reused, repaired, refurbished, remanufactured, and repurposed products and their marketing communication. Let’s use our knowledge of message framing and advertising to provide information to consumers about circular economy products. For example, perceived contamination negatively influences consumers’ opinions of circular products and decreases willingness to pay (Baxter, Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2017). Consumers are more likely to purchase a T-shirt made of unused recycled plastic bottles than used bottles (Meng & Leary, 2021). We need to manage these perceptions and it should be our job to improve attitudes and increase their acceptability. Research shows communications can make a difference, for example, providing consumers information about the health and environmental benefits of waste-to-value food can improve attitudes (Cattaneo, Lavelli, Proserpio, Laureati, & Pagliarini, 2019). There is a critical role for sustainable marketers to consider upcycled foods (Ye, 2023) and in general, for social marketers to play in communicating the circular economy.

Even more importantly, how can we shape the environment to ensure circular product and service choices are the most convenient, cost-effective, and desired? This includes questions around reverse logistics. Here, there is a major call to arms to supply chain management (Kotabe, 2023). How can we, through services and infrastructure, make it convenient to reuse, repair and bring back our products to the manufacturer?

Auxiliary Sustainable Marketing

The circular economy is not a magic bullet that will save the planet or humankind. Many strategies of companies still also fall into the most linear strategies, Recycle and Recover; which fall under the umbrella of Auxiliary Sustainable Marketing. Here, collection, sorting and infrastructure are required. While we ‘cannot recycle our way out of the problem’ (as stated by many newspaper articles), there are industries, for hygiene or safety reasons, that cannot adopt a reuse model. Moreover, lifecycle assessments (LCA) also paint a picture which isn’t black or white – for example an LCA conducted for New Zealand Post demonstrated that recycled plastic courier bags imported from China were the most environmentally friendly option (Riordan & Vickers, 2021) . An LCA doesn’t tell us everything, but it will lead companies to choose between alternatives. Future research should consider environmental and social dimensions of sustainability when considering recycling and recovery, for example the location of composting plants can impact local communities (Edwards, 2023). The circular economy of plastics is still an understudied research topic – plastic for single-use (e.g., food, medical) and other applications (e.g., piping) are still needed, so how can we create circularity in the system?