Green marketing practices by supermarkets in Nairobi central business district, Kenya

Abstract

Previously, businesses assumed that incorporating ‘green’ into their business strategy would cost money, but they now realize that ignoring negative impacts on environment will be costly in future. The purpose of this study is to establish green marketing practices by Supermarkets in Nairobi’s central business district. This research used descriptive research design approach which involves acquiring information about one or more groups of people about their characteristics, opinions, attitudes or previous experiences – by asking the questions and tabulating their answers. The population of interest was all the supermarkets companies in Nairobi’s CBD. The study was carried out on all the 10 supermarkets found in Nairobi’s CBD. Primary data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire which was divided into three sections, the first part was on demographic information, the second on the extent of adoption of green marketing and the last part on benefits derived from green marketing practices. The questionnaire was administered using drop and pick method. Marketing managers for the respective supermarkets were targeted for interview. Data analysis involved reducing the accumulated data to manageable size, developing summaries and looking for patterns and applying statistical techniques. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. The Statistics Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) program was used to analyze the data and output presented in form of tables, pie charts and bar graphs. From the findings, it is clear that, the answers given by the different respondents were almost the same. This might be because all the companies are found in the same region and hence have almost the same operational strategies. To add on that the respondents were all very experienced and knowledgeable about green marketing. The researcher recommends that, the government should create awareness to all supermarkets on the benefits derived from practicing green market in order to make their products more acceptable in the market and conserve the environment for future generation. This should also be reinforced by the relevant regulatory authorities. The study recommends the need for supermarkets to practice green market through product, price, distribution and promotional strategies