Sustainability Marketing (2nd ed): 'New and Improved'

Frank, Ken and the team at Wiley are pleased and proud to announce the publication of the Second Edition of ‘Sustainability Marketing: A Global Perspective’. Like any second edition it represents an evolution from the first edition, and the changes reflect some of the significant developments since 2009 in relation to sustainability and marketing. This is also expressed in the title cover, which is similar, and yet different and distinct:

We were really pleased with how the original edition was received by lecturers, students, companies and researchers, and many of them provided feedback and ideas that we have been able to incorporate in the new edition. Hereby we would like to thank everyone who has provided comments and ideas and pointed us towards interesting cases and companies! 

The new edition is slightly longer than the first, and we have used the additional space to enable the book to more fully live up to our ambition to take a ‘Global Perspective’. It includes cases from a more diverse range of countries than before, and provides an overview of differences and developments in sustainability marketing in key regions and countries as part of the second, context setting, chapter (Europe, North America, Africa, South America, Middle East, Asia). Some new sustainability marketing stories and challenges include the following: 

• American Apparel: Too Sexy for its (Sustainable) Shirts?
• Beauty Brand Natura - Bem Estar Bem
• Ecotourism in Costa Rica
• Fair Trade: A Taste of Sustainable Good Life
• Sun Chips: The Battle of Bags
• Timberland: Communicating Steps towards Sustainability
• Think Blue and Green Wars
• and many others ...

The structure of the book remains the same as the first edition, which will hopefully come as a relief to those teachers who have already structured a course and teaching materials based around it. The range of industries we’ve explored through the cases and examples has expanded to include more on marketing within sustainable fashion, ecotourism, consumer electronics and cosmetics amongst others. We have also tried to capture some of the significant cultural trends that have gained prominence since the first edition was published, taking in topics such as open sustainability innovation, collaborative consumption, and even the dark arts of online ‘astroturfing’. We will be looking to release updated teaching materials to support the second edition very soon, and will be revitalizing this blog to support the book with ongoing coverage of sustainability marketing news stories, controversies and further examples to supplement the contents of the book – so, watch this space .....

The phrase “New and Improved” has been criticised as the most over-used cliché in the entire world of marketing, but in the case of our second edition, we would like to think it is literally true. We still have high hopes that marketing managers within companies, and the managers of the future currently learning about marketing, will read the new edition of the book and be willing and able to take the ideas and perspectives that it presents and apply them in the ‘real world’ of marketing practice. One of the most gratifying responses we had to the first edition was when the Director responsibility for Sustainability Marketing at one of the World’s biggest company emailed us saying 

“I have been avidly reading it over the last several days and am finding it more and more appropriate to the challenge I am facing within our global organization - how to leverage the reach and relationships our brands have with consumers to make a positive difference in the world ...and equally importantly, how to institutionalize this thinking into our 'way of marketing'.” 

That was the moment when knew that our book was doing something more than just adding to the debate, and that it was helping to make a real difference to the way marketing is taught, learnt and practiced.