Sustainability Marketing: the Use of Sustainability Messages, Labels, and Reports in the Marketing Communication

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will comprise a selection of papers addressing sustainability in marketing. It will focus on the use of sustainability messages, sustainability labels, and sustainability reports in the marketing communication of companies. The scope of this Special Issue is related to the research questions listed below. They concern the frequency, effectiveness, abuse, optimization, and perception of marketing communications appealing to sustainability. This Special Issue aims to advance our understanding of various aspects of sustainability marketing, particularly the promotion of environmentally friendly and socially responsible products, practices, and brand values. It is situated in the marketing communication literature stream, with important insights from strategic marketing, brand management, and consumer behavior.

Some key research questions are as follows:

1. What is the frequency of the use of sustainability messages, labels, or reports in marketing communication (advertising, product packages, merchandising, public relations, company websites, social media marketing, e-commerce, etc.) in selected countries or industries? How does it change over time? International comparisons are also welcome.
2. What is the effectiveness of the use of sustainability messages, labels, or reports in marketing communication? What metrics can be used to measure this effectiveness? Both methodological and empirical papers are invited.
3. How serious is the problem of inappropriate use (abuse, including the phenomenon of greenwashing) of sustainability messages, labels, or reports in marketing communication? To what extent can this problem be solved by government regulations or codes of conduct? Which practices are considered illegal or unethical?
4. How can companies optimize their use of sustainability messages, labels, or reports in their marketing communication? Which aspects of sustainability should be emphasized, and in what way and under what conditions? What are possible synergies and conflicts between sustainability communications and other types of messages used by the same company (e.g., sustainability and health, sustainability and quality)? Which consumer segments are sensitive to which types of sustainability messages, labels, or reports?
5. What is the role of the country-of-origin effect (COOE) and consumer ethnocentrism in the perception of sustainability messages, labels, or reports? Marketing communication referring to sustainability is perceived as more or less credible if it originates from which countries? What is the impact of the host country culture on the perception of sustainability messages, labels, or reports?
6. What causes a brand to be perceived as following the principles of sustainability or distinguishing itself as sustainable? Which company practices are considered by consumers as violating sustainability? How can companies achieve successful brand positioning based on communicating sustainability? How can they regain consumer trust after a breach of sustainability pledges is revealed?

Dr. Paweł Bryła
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.