CSR vs. Sustainability Marketing

Sustainability marketing is defined in the the textbook “Sustainability Marketing” by Belz and Peattie as “building and maintaining sustainable relationships with customers, the social environment and the natural environment”.  Looking for an alternate definition, I found one at the Semiosis Communications Blog written by Peter Korchnak that was “marketing that serves an organization’s triple bottom line”.

Throughout the course, I feel that we’ve placed a strong emphasis on 2 of the 3 aspects of the triple bottom line including the environmental impact of the products or services and the economic aspect of generating financial returns for the shareholders.  However, the third aspect of social well-being is one that I felt that we haven’t paid enough attention to, although it is often tied in with our discussion topics.  I believe the reason for this is that it is one of the hardest ones to frame in our minds.  It’s easy to consider how an organization should minimize its environmental impact on the planet alongside conducting its business in a way that leads to profitability.  But, benefiting communities and society overall as well?  How does a company go about doing that?

I often confuse the ideas of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with sustainability marketing.  The first is more focused on the corporate level and stakeholders whereas the latter emphasizes the product level and customers (found this from the textbook).  If a company sources its food from a local farmer and pays him/her a fair amount for the produce, then I would consider this an act of CSR.  I suppose what I’m needing a bit of guidance about is what types of activities fall under the societal aspect of sustainability marketing?  What goals would one consider being a societal goal for sustainability marketing and not necessarily a CSR activity?  Or do they always overlap?  I know this post is filled with more questions than anything, but I’d love to hear some people’s insight on this topic!