ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the new rules of green marketing require businesses to adopt a life-cycle approach to their products and packages. Designing products and packaging for minimal impact can be tricky. Representing a iconic greener product, the globally distributed Toyota Prius hybrid sedan combines smart design and a new brand of marketing with an exceptional rate of fuel efficiency gauged at 50 miles-per-gallon overall. That once seemingly short checklist includes minimizing the environmental impacts of those products at every phase of their life-cycle, starting with the impacts associated with mining, growing, or processing the raw materials right through to the impacts linked to a product’s eventual disposal. Once the boundaries and assumptions are determined, quantify the use of energy, resources, and emissions associated with raw-material procurement, manufacturing and production, packaging, distribution, and in-use straight through to after-use or final disposal.
