Book’s 3rd Edition Digs Deeper into the Making, Marketing of ‘Greener Products’

In Greener Products: The Making and Marketing of Sustainable
Brands, sustainability marketing veteran Al
Iannuzzi provides a well-articulated
story that integrates the need for, design of, and manufacture of more
sustainable products with how to effectively create a meaningful, accurate
story. The book serves everyone from senior undergraduate and graduate students
in programs focused on sustainability to academics and corporate sustainability
leaders.

Previous editions of this book — which provides a framework for the making and
marketing of sustainable products within a company’s brand portfolio — have been
used to teach courses on sustainability, product improvement, introduction to
sustainability, green marketing and sustainability, and sustainability policy;
and as a guide to companies’ sustainable product design and marketing
initiatives.

The ‘greener product’ landscape

Companies are paying attention to the growing consumer
demand
for sustainable products; and meeting this has become imperative to brand
success, as illustrated by scores of mini-case studies throughout the book.

Section one, on making a case for more sustainable products, will appeal to
established sustainability professionals — it’s an important part of their job.
However, this third edition provides a global context on regulatory and market
drivers for greener products. It uses the cultural (B2C, B2B) and regulatory
demands
for better-made products as a foundation for the knowledge and insights
delivered.

Section two focuses on the design and
manufacture
of more sustainable products in the context of many current sustainability
topics — including a circular
economy, plastics in
the
environment,
biodiversity,
climate
change,
green
chemistry
and more.

Tools and case studies

The case studies of leading companies provide both tools and strategic
frameworks that will educate and inform the leadership required to develop a
process, team or organization, and create brand value to boost an organization’s
profitability and ability to retain/attract top
talent.

Also noteworthy, these insights and strategic guidelines are important for the
development of emerging professionals who are pursuing undergraduate and
graduate degrees related to climate, sustainability, cleantech, regulatory
policy, project management and more.

I am especially inspired by the chapter on valuing natural
capital
and attendant tools (many of which didn’t exist ten years ago). These tools
enable companies to
measure
and
manage
their use of natural resources more efficiently and become stewards for future
generations of consumers, communities and employees — a very topical growth area
in corporate sustainability today.

As an experienced marketing professional, I found much to appreciate in section
three — marketing greener products. The author addresses both the strategic and
practical considerations of this by sharing two points he makes when he speaks
publicly on the subject:

1. There is no such thing as a “green” product.

2. What good is a greener product if no one knows about it?

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Published Nov 8, 2024 8am EST / 5am PST / 1pm GMT / 2pm CET