Climate change and marketing: Stranded research or a sustainable development?

Abstract

Climate change represents an existential crises for economic, social, and natural systems. Given the significance of the topic and the importance of behavioural change, it might be expected that marketing may be a substantial contributor to climate change studies. However, this is not the case with substantially less than 1% of papers in a sample of marketing journals being concerned with climate change. Nevertheless, there is substantial interest in marketing practices and climate change outside of marketing journals. It is therefore posited that, as a discipline, marketing may potentially become a form of stranded research in the social science of climate change rather than a positive sustainable contribution to emissions reduction and consumer studies. It is also observed that a shift in focus from carbon literacy to the carbon capabilities of consumers presents a significant challenge to marketing assumptions about agency and structure and the relative roles of upstream and downstream marketing and the ethics of marketing practice.

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