According to American Marketing Association, Green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. Thus green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, as well as modifying advertising. Yet defining green marketing is not a simple task. Other similar terms used are Environmental Marketing and Ecological Marketing.

The term green marketing came into prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The American Marketing Association (AMA) held the first workshop on "Ecological Marketing" in 1975. The proceedings of this workshop resulted in one of the first books on green marketing entitled "Ecological Marketing" [Henion and Kinnear 1976a]. A recent survey discovered that 94 percent of all consumers prefer to do business with companies that demonstrate that they care about the environment. Almost 80 percent said they would pay more for environmentally friendly products.

According to Jacquelyn A. Ottman (author of Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation), from an organizational standpoint, environmental considerations should be integrated into all aspects of marketing — new product development and communications and all points in between. The holistic nature of green also suggests that besides suppliers and retailers new stakeholders be enlisted, including educators, members of the community, regulators, and NGOs. Environmental issues should be balanced with primary customer needs.

source: Wikipedia