Identifying the Green Marketing Components in the Iranian Dairy Industry

Changing market mechanisms for the production and supply of new environmentally friendly products has become an important issue for companies and marketing units. Therefore, companies should significantly reduce their negative environmental impacts in production, distribution, provision of raw materials and energy consumption. Otherwise, they will be harmed by the laws and customer demand. Such changes in the preferences and demands of customers, which are raised in the form of environmental concerns, have had a significant impact on the innovation of manufacturing companies.

In order to identify the components of green marketing in the dairy industry, the present study has used a quantitative approach. More precisely, in order to present the mentioned model, the Fuzzy-DEMATEL-ISM (Fuzzy-DEMATEL-Interpretive-Structural Modelling) method known as FDISM has been used. Although both ISM and DEMATEL are multi-criteria decision-making methods, they are used to understand the interactions among identified factors and their clustering at certain levels. The ISM method helps to understand the "what" and "how" in theory building and DEMATEL provides direct and indirect effects between components.

In this study, the identification of green marketing components in the dairy industry was considered. After identifying the components of green marketing, the influence and effectiveness of each of these components was determined using the fuzzy Dimetal technique. Based on the results, it was determined that environmental laws and standards and social responsibility of companies are the most influential factors, and customers' purchase intentions are the most influential factors. Finally, with interpretative structural modelling, the mentioned factors are levelled in the form of a model in six levels as follows. Two factors of laws and regulations and environmental standards and social responsibility of companies as the most basic factors are located in the first level and green marketing strategy in the second level and two factors of green change and innovation and green marketing orientation are located in the third level and green production in the fourth level and the four marketing mix factors are placed at the fifth level and the purchase intention factor as the most influential factor is at the sixth level.

According to the research results regarding the importance of green production and attention to food health in the dairy industry, companies should change the design of dairy products to avoid toxic compounds in the production process; Also, the producers of this product should change the design of the products in order to improve the energy efficiency during use, and as the most important factor, the packaging of the biodegradable product should be changed in order to reduce the environmental effects. According to the research results regarding the importance of social responsibility in green marketing and the role of branding in the development of social responsibility, dairy companies producing organic/green products should create a brand and avoid the production and sale of bulk dairy products. In designing and creating a green brand, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that their title matches the type of products to be useful in creating their brand image. Considering the importance of green market orientation, green strategies and change management and green innovation in the green marketing model, companies producing dairy products should focus on improving the quality of their products and services through a new orientation and strengthening the spirit of change. Showing their effectiveness towards the environment and showing their environmental concerns by using promotion activities to help customers' perception of their originality and also by strengthening the three dimensions of their green tendencies (communications, activities and offers) high green value for products from the consumer's point of view.
The present study faces a major limitation that should be considered in future studies. The model presented in this research examined the effect of variables on each other statically. Considering that the variables may interact with each other, it is suggested that this model might be investigated by the system dynamics method in future research.