Green Marketing at the Store: The socio-material life of a t-shirt

Summary, in English

Green products are becoming part of contemporary consumer cultures and part of everyday life. But how are green products constructed? And how do they work? This paper is concerned with the role that marketing plays in the making and circulation of green products. My aim is to illuminate the process of green making. Departing from an understanding of marketing as socio- material practice I analyse how a green outdoor product - a t-shirt - was constructed as green through the marketing practices of the Nordic Nature Shops. Focusing on this retail corporation and examining the practices of trail making, attending and selling I suggest that these t-shirts become green through a process of socio-material inscription. Through marketing practices green moral is generated and linked to the t-shirts giving and potentially making them desirable consumption objects to be used in the construction of consumers green identities. But, this process of green making is, I argue, a difficult accomplishment with ambiguous outcomes. The greening of consumer culture is not an easy accomplishment and commercial greening might also have a number of negative societal consequences.

• Author: Christian Fuentes
• Department/s: Department of Service Studies
• Publishing year: 2012
• Language: English
• Document type: Working paper
• Publisher: Department of Service Management, Lund University
• Topic: Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
• Keywords: socio-material; outdoors; moral; consumer culture; green consumption; Green marketing
• Status: Published