Why a firm can no longer turn away, and Yuhan-Kimberly from March 1970

The notes take as their centre Yuhan-Kimberly, which they treat as a pioneer-like case of green marketing, in order to look in some depth at both the advantages and the limits of the practice as it already stood. From there they set out cases of a number of other firms that have practiced green marketing, and discuss where it might go. The aim, they write, is to help consumers see the importance of its role and to urge green consumption, and ultimately to encourage sustainable management through mutual cooperation, as firms and consumers both activate green production and green consumption.

With the making of international agreements for the conservation of the earth’s environment, and with trade barriers meant to regulate that conservation accelerating day by day, domestic industry and firms, the notes say, have also been placed in a position where they must change their sight from a pursuit of growth centred on production, and shift their structure toward growth centred on the environment. Rapid economic growth brought environmental destruction to a serious level; the industrialization that followed paralyzed the purifying function of ecosystems, and at last threatened human survival itself. At a point when the influence of environmentalism and of consumerism was growing stronger by the day, a firm could no longer, ethically or strategically, turn away from social responsibility for the environment.

Yuhan-Kimberly was founded in March 1970. On five management principles — respect for people, customer satisfaction, social contribution, leading by innovation, and the creation of value — it is said to work constantly in order to practice a mission of supplying beneficial products and services that consumers prefer, thereby leading the development of a hygiene culture, and contributing to the improvement of health and welfare. Its main business, as the notes list it, is the making and sale of tissue goods such as toilet paper, tissue, paper towels, travel tissue and wet wipes; personal goods such as women’s sanitary products and paper diapers; and medical goods such as gowns, sterilization wrap, surgical packs, supplies used in respiratory treatment, disposable masks, and special medical paper.

Barbara Ward, a 1982 UNEP meeting, and a turn toward green marketing

The industrial revolution that arose from industrialization and from the development of science and technology, the notes write, gave humanity economic plenty. Many came to enjoy material benefits, but the consumption of resources and energy advanced quickly, and pollution and the discharge of public nuisances changed ecological structures, giving rise to serious environmental problems that threaten human survival and existence itself. Studies, they record, have long discussed the claim that, within the next twenty years, most fossil-energy resources would reach a peak, that the world economy would fall into confusion, and that the existing energy system itself would be destroyed. That claim is left as the notes give it, and is not treated here as a later official total. As global warming has continued, they write, summers have grown hotter year by year, and abnormal heavy rain and drought and other natural disasters have come more often. Even so, because the view that economic growth and environmental protection are hard to pursue together was deeply rooted, the visions or strategies of firms in the past stood far from environmental management.

But in the early 1970s, they record, Barbara Ward raised the need for “sustainable development,” linking environmental protection and economic development; the matter was adopted at a 1982 meeting of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Those years stay in the early 1970s and in 1982. As a result, in the late 1980s, industry sought to respond a little more actively to environmental problems, and that voluntary will to practice was given concrete form in various environmental charters and guidelines.

After that, with the United States in the lead, a movement began that sought to make a new driving force on the footing of the environment. In keeping with that current, many leading firms in the world composed their strategies around words such as green, the earth, eco, environment, and carbon, and began to turn from an older marketing concept, which had pursued profit on the basis of consumerism, toward a management paradigm of so-called “green marketing,” for sustainable management from a social point of view. By practicing green marketing, the notes say, a firm reduces costs and gains a positive social reputation for the environment; such activity is recognized as a strategic element tied directly to competitiveness, and today everyone from large firms to small ventures is calling for green management.

Korea’s August 2008 vision, a goal toward 2020, and the limits of a short history

In Korea as well, the notes write, government, firms, and consumers have each been gradually raising their awareness of the environment. At the government level, in August 2008, “low-carbon green growth” was proclaimed as a national vision, and the direction of policy was drawn toward a goal of entering the world’s top seven green powers by 2020. That proclamation and that goal stay in August 2008 and in 2020 as the notes give them, and are not treated here as a later official total or as a later official result.

Public institutions have been induced to buy environmentally friendly products as a duty, and each ministry has been running campaigns and preparing environmental-education programs in order to raise consumers’ environmental awareness. Many firms in Korea, the notes say, have been improving existing goods so that their environmental impact is smaller, devising new products related to the environment, and actively running environmental campaigns, and have been unfolding green-marketing activity very actively.

But because the history of green marketing is not very long, and because it was not introduced in Korea all that long ago, there are, they write, limits on one side of it. Green marketing is a worldwide current, and a project in which government, firms, and consumers must all take part together. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. Notes that take Yuhan-Kimberly, founded in March 1970, as a pioneer-like case, and record its five management principles, its mission, and its lines of tissue, personal, and medical goods.
2. Barbara Ward in the early 1970s, a 1982 UNEP meeting, and environmental charters and guidelines in the late 1980s, with those years left in place.
3. Korea’s August 2008 proclamation of low-carbon green growth, a goal toward 2020 left as a goal, and the limits that follow from a short history of green marketing.

Last updated: 14 November 2026