The Marketing Environment
The marketing environment constitutes all the external actors and issues that affect the marketing decisions and practices of a business. A number of different models and acronyms are used by marketers to divide up the environment in order to deal with it. Sometimes it is split between the micro or task environment (which includes the day-to-day influences on a business such as customers, competitors, suppliers and distributors) and the macro environment which includes broader influences that have more intermittent impact on the business (such as social trends, politics, economics, technology or laws). For an example of one framework to break the macro-environment down, click here.
In conventional marketing, two aspects of the macro environment were often missing. Firstly the physical environment was often not considered as part of the marketing environment, even though the planet ultimately underpins all that we do in business. Secondly, the analysis of the marketing environment was set very much in the present and only considered the present generation of customers, shareholders, employees and other stakeholders.
SCEPTICAL Analysis, a tool to assist marketers to break down and analyse the marketing environment, is available in Smart:Know-Net’s “Sustainable Marketing Toolbox”. To access this tool, click here.
http://www.worldwatch.org
The institute is dedicated to fostering the evolution of an environmentally-sustainable
society - one in which human needs are met in ways that do not threaten the
health of the natural environment or the prospects of future generations.
http://www.emagazine.com
The Environmental Magazine provides a range of 'green' information.
http://www.ifg.org
IFG provides a range of information on economic globalization.
http://www.peopleandplanet.net
peopleandplanet.net provides on Internet gateway into the issues of population,
poverty, health, consumption and the environment.
http://www.iisd.ca/
A multimedia resource covering a range of environmental and social issues.
http://www.sustlife.com/
Gateway to information on living a more healthy, socially and environmentally
sustainable life.
http://www.citizen.org
National non-profit public interest organisation focused on openness and democratic
accountability in government, for the right of consumers to seek redress in
the courts; for clean, safe and sustainable energy sources; for social and
economic justice in trade policies.
http://www.rabble.ca
rabble.ca highlights the work of progressive journalists, writers, artists
and activists.
http://www.indymedia.org/
This is the collective of independent media organisation and hundreds of journalists
offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage.
http://www.essential.org
Data on range of corporate activities.
http://www.corpwatch.org
Monitors transnational corporations and their social, ecological, and economic
impacts.
http://www.ran.org
The Rainforest Action Network provides information on tropical rainforests
and the human rights of those forests.
http://www.greenpeace.org
Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organisation.
http://www.foe.org
FOE is an international environmental group including programme information
on environmental impacts of globalisation.
http://www.sierraclub.org
The Sierra Club is a US grassroots conservation organisation whose its goal
is the exploration, enjoyment and protection of the wild places of the Earth.
http://www.wwf.org
A web site for individuals who are interested in endangered species.
http://www.fscoax.org/
The activities of the Forest Stewardship Council is highlighted in this site.
http://www.globalexchange.org
A research, education, and action centre building bridges between grassroots
movements in the US and Third World.
http://www.amnesty.org
Amnesty International is a world-wide campaigning movement that works to promote
all the human rights.
http://www.oxfam.org
Oxfam International is an international confederation of 11 autonomous non-government
organisations.
http://www.hrw.org
Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around
the world.
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
The site provides the full text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
http://www.jubilee2000uk.org
Provides a range of information on third world debt.
http://www.motherjones.com
Mother Jones is an independent, non-profit magazine that focuses on issues
of social justice, the environment, politics, and popular culture.
http://www.ruckus.org
Ruckus is a training ground for activists.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/environment/index_en.htm
Details of European environmental legislation
http://earthwatch.unep.net/
Integrated information on the state of the planet from the UNEP
http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/key/environmental/environmental.htm
Key environmental data and targets for the UK.