Abstract:
The environment was used beyond its productive and assimilative capacity and
business companies are not far from being blamed. Companies usually depended on the
unlimited supply of resources used in and for their production, and they used the
external environment to produce the by-products of their production. In addition they
never thought to share in the treatment of the wastes generated by the consumers of
their goods. It was until recently that some nations represented by . scientist, public
groups, governments' agencies, and many others, driven by social, legal, and public pressures, began to really think to putting an end to these problems. Regulations,
environmental product certification programs, and environmental management
standards began to emerge in one nation after the other. Thus new management and
marketing concepts were introduced by integrating the environment within, giving more corporate responsibility towards the environment.
The purpose of this project is to assess where companies in Lebanon stand as far as environmental management and marketing are concerned. In addition, the project attempts to discover whether we have green consumers in Lebanon or not, or what green consumer segmentation is available in Lebanon. To achieve the objective of this research, two survey questionnaires were developed: one for public, and another set of questions for food industries. Data gathered was analyzed using ASP, a Statistical
Package for Business and Economics where percentages, crosstabulations, and average
percentages were calculated.
Consumers appear to be either ''ungreen'': plain, don't care about the environment, or
"grousers": rationalize their non-behavior by excuses and criticize others, or "maybe green": express high degree of concern but act irregularly. In addition their behavior is
stilI in the precontempiation stage and people need a lot of awareness to act
accordingly. Companies, on the other hand were attracted by environmental
management and marketing concepts, however they appear not excited and ready to change or re-engineer their operations to preserve the environment.
