Basics of Marketing - Kotler Philip

The natural environment

In the 1960s, there was growing public anxiety over whether the industrial activities in developed countries were destroying the natural environment . In her book "Silent Spring" Rachel Carson5 talked about the damage caused to water, soil and air by certain branches of industrial activity. Groups of vigilance, such as the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, arose, and concerned legislators began to put forward various measures to protect the environment. Changes in the environment affect the products that firms produce and offer to the market.

DEFICIENCY OF SOME SPECIES OF RAW MATERIAL . Water and air may seem like inexhaustible types of natural resources, but some environmental groups see a threat in the future. These groups advocate the prohibition of the sale of certain drugs in aerosol packaging, as they can cause potential damage to the ozone layer in the atmosphere. And with water in a number of areas of the world, problems have arisen today.

The use of renewable resources, such as forest and food, requires attention. To save soil and provide enough timber to meet demand in the future, firms engaged in timber processing should restore plantations on the cut down areas. Supply of food can be a major problem, as the size of agricultural land is limited and increasingly allocated to housing construction and for commercial use.

A serious problem arises from the depletion of such non-renewable resources as oil, coal and other minerals.

Today, it seems, there is already a shortage of platinum, gold, zinc and lead ... By the end of the century, even with rising prices, silver, tin and uranium may be in short supply. If current consumption levels are maintained, by the year 2050, stocks of a number of other minerals may be depleted6.

Even in the presence of raw materials, the activities of firms using scarce mineral resources may become more complicated and require much higher costs. And shifting these costs to the consumer's shoulders will probably not be easy. Firms engaged in research and survey work can partially alleviate the problem by opening new valuable sources of raw materials and creating new materials.

ENERGY ENERGY . The most serious problem of ensuring economic development in the future arose in connection with one of the non-renewable types of natural resources? Oil. The economy of the world's leading industrialized countries largely depends on oil supplies, and until economically viable substitutes for this energy carrier are found, oil will continue to play a dominant role in world politics and economy. The high cost of oil (jumped from $ 2.23 per barrel in 1970 to $ 34.00 per barrel in 1982) generated a feverish search for alternative energy sources. Once again, coal became popular, research is being conducted to find practical ways of using solar, nuclear, wind and other types of energy. Only in the field of the use of solar energy, hundreds of firms offer equipment for heating living quarters and other purposes.

GROWTH OF POLLUTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT . Industrial activity almost always harms the state of the natural environment. Think about the removal of waste products from chemical and nuclear industries, the dangerous level of mercury in the seas and oceans, the content of DDT and other chemical contaminants in soil and food, as well as the contamination of the environment with bottles, plastic products and other packaging materials that can not be repaired Biochemical decomposition.

The concern of the public opens up a good marketing opportunity before the companies that are sensitive to the situation. A capacious market of pollution abatement tools, such as scrubbers and aggregates that work on recycling of raw materials, is being created. The search for alternative ways of producing and packaging goods without harming the environment begins.

DECISIVE INTERVENTION OF THE STATE IN THE PROCESS OF RATIONAL USE AND REPRODUCTION OF NATURAL RESOURCES . The management of the marketing department should keep a close eye on all these problems in order to be able to obtain the necessary natural resources for the firm's activities, without harming the environment at the same time. In this sense, entrepreneurial activity is likely to be under strong control both by state bodies and by influential groups of the public. Instead of resisting all forms of regulation, business should participate in the search for acceptable solutions to the country's problems of supplying material resources and energy.