The Paradox between Consumerism and Sustainability - How to approach the marketing professionals with this theme

Abstract

Much has been said these days about the World’s limited capacity to provide sustainable resources vis a vis the growing population's demand for goods and supplies in a planet of finite resources. According to the Living Planet Report, produced by the NGO World Wildlife Fund (WWF): “At humanity's present rate of consumption, by 2030 we'll need the resources of two Earths just to survive long-term. There are really two options: start building another Earth, or drastically change our lifestyles. Which one is supposed to be easier?”[1]The present article addresses this issue from the point of view of the marketing executives of big companies, responsible to lead the communication and growth strategies of those companies, often encouraging 'consumerism' to meet the profit and revenue growths. The idea was to understand if this topic is relevant to these professionals,hence their companies, and raise some hypotheses of how to approach this problem in order to provoke those companies to practice "conscious marketing". Going one step further, does the type of organizational paradigm in which the executive company acts should influence the way to approach this professional when conducting personal interviews to collect data? An initial analysis on the theory of how to develop market research questions to avoid bias and/or induced responses, will lead to the article conclusion of how to set up a questionnaire that will be taken into consideration in a near future, at the masters’ thesis of the author.

[1] Source:http://io9.com/5664078/humanity-will-need-two-earths-to-sustain-itself-in-just-twenty-years, access 02 dec 12