Golden goose or wild goose? The hunt for the green consumer

The green consumer has been the central character in the development of green marketing, as businesses attempt to understand and respond to external pressures to improve their environmental performance. Marketing practitioners and academics are attempting to identify and understand green consumers and their needs, and to develop market offerings that meet these needs. So far there is little consensus about the identity and nature of green consumers, except that they have been something of a disappointment to the marketers who have pursued them. These difficulties perhaps reflect the folly of trying to understand green consumption and green marketing by viewing it as simply a variation on conventional marketing. This article proposes some different ways of looking at green consumption and green marketing, which have the potential to prevent the hunt for the green consumer from deteriorating into a wild goose chase. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment