SUSTAINABILITY MARKETING (ONLINE) - 2025/6

Module Overview

The module provides a grounding in the role of marketing and communications to promote sustainable change in both organisations and consumers. We will review the role of marketing in promoting sustainability, and summarise the historical context and evolution of sustainability in marketing. We will delve into the societal expectations for ethical claims both to consumers and stakeholders, including Sustainability reporting frameworks. We will review the evidence on consumer behaviour and sustainable purchasing, and how this informs strategic sustainable marketing planning. We shall consider opportunities for green product, service and experience development, pricing decisions for sustainable products. We will move on to consider upstream and downstream distribution channels for sustainable products, including business to business marketing and sustainable supply chain management. We will finalise with a review of communication and messaging opportunities, such as techniques for crafting effective messages for sustainability, transparency and authenticity in communication, and addressing greenwashing and building trust.

Module provider

SOL - Sustainability, Civil and Env Eng

Module Leader

FONT Xavier (Hosp & Tour)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• Political, Economic, Social, Technological and Legislative analysis of corporate and consumer facing sustainability claims.


• Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for sustainable marketing and communications.


• (Un)sustainable consumer behaviour.


• Segmenting, targeting and sustainable value propositions.


• Strategic marketing decisions.


• Sustainable product, service and experience design.


• Pricing decisions, and the myth of sustainable price premiums.


• Distribution: Sustainable supply chain management and business to business marketing.


• Communications: Greenwashing and greenhushing. Above the line and below the line opportunities for sustainable comms. 


• Corporate social responsibility reporting as a marketing and communication tool.


• Persuasive communication opportunities and techniques to nudge consumers (and staff).

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

None

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate the awareness and insight of sustainability marketing and communication interventions to address impacts of a public or private organisation of their choice, in order to generate societal benefits. Students are required to demonstrate knowledge of theory, research evidence and contemporary practice. The module is assessed by two individual assignments.
Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• State of the art assessment. 50% Individual Assignment. The individual assignment is a report. You will critically evaluate the state of the art in sustainability marketing and communication for an industry or an impact of your choice.  (Addresses learning outcomes: 1, 2 and 3).


• Sustainability marketing strategy. 50% Individual Assignment. The individual assignment is a report. Based on the research done for the first assignment, you will outline and justify a sustainability marketing or communication strategy for an organisation of your choice. (Addresses learning outcomes: 2, 4 and 5).

Formative assessment and feedback: 
This module adopts an enquiry-based approach to feedback where the emphasis is on providing resources to students which allow them to identify their own strengths and weaknesses in order to develop learning strategies which will allow them to improve their performance. These resources include: 
Prior to the assignment, lecture time will be spent discussing the assignment and feedback process; A detailed marking scheme which provides guidance on how marks will be awarded for each element of assessment. This marking scheme has benefits for both staff and students; for staff it allows for consistency of marking between markers and for rapid and rigorous marking, for students it makes it absolutely clear what is expected of them. 
Students will receive a mark for each element of the assignment which they can reference to the marking scheme for details individual feedback; and generic feedback which explains what students did well and did less well overall. This will take two forms. In the first lecture after submission, time will be spent explaining the key learning issues form the assignment and, once marking is completed, students will receive detailed generic feedback via CANVAS including a statistical breakdown of marks so that they can place their own performance into that of their cohort.

Module aims

• This module provides students with the critical assessment tools to evaluate current sustainability marketing and communication practices, and to de-risk future practices by ensuring that they meet strict legal and moral standards, reflect the reality of the organisation's sustainability performance, and respond to the needs of consumers.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to teach the principles and practice of the role of marketing in promoting sustainability, factors influencing consumer choices related to sustainability, sustainability as a competitive advantage, regulatory and legal aspects of sustainable marketing as well as the most common marketing mix practices.  
Applying a range of analytical skills to assess current case studies, the module helps students to critically assess state of the art efforts to market products and services as sustainable, to appraise risks and to propose and justify practices that will benefit both the planet, consumers, and the company. 
The learning and teaching methods include: 

• CANVAS.


• Online interviews, videos, and short documentaries.


• Live chats and group discussions.


• Main assessment writing guides.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ECOM083

Other information

This module adopts the university curriculum framework, which aims to develop learners with strong capabilities in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module contributes to the development of the following capabilities:
Global and Cultural Capabilities: The module revolves around the roles of sustainability marketing and communication to promote behaviour change amongst consumers and employees. Since students are from different countries with diverse cultural backgrounds, class discussions and seminar exercises will be used to reinforce students’ global and cultural capabilities. 
Employability: Guest lecturers will present up-to-date insights on relevant topics and provide an opportunity for students to learn directly from industry and government. Students will gain knowledge on current developments of sustainability marketing practices in from a range of industries, and be taught to critically evaluate these practices. They will also learn how to develop strategies to manage these developments. All these skills can be transferred to various situations at the workplace, including problem-solving tasks.  
Sustainability: This module motivates students to identify behaviour change mechanisms to address with the most critical impacts of different industries on society, environment and economy through a case study analysis and class discussion. Students will be guided in developing sustainability marketing and communication plans, strategies and campaigns.
Resourcefulness and Resilience: The assessment strategy which comprises two stages: formative assessment and summative assessment. Through this strategy, this module empowers students to build self-evaluation into assessment processes and create spaces for students to reflect on their own performance whilst reviewing feedback. The structured schedule of the two-stage assessment will also support students in developing time management skills. Also, students are motivated to make informed decisions from a range of options as to which aspect of their work they would like to request feedback. The critical nature of the in-class discussion will help foster openness by encouraging students to understand and discuss contrasting perspectives.

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.