Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility in the
Renewable Energy Sector
Gaining a competitive advantage in the European market through marketing
promotion
Author: Jan Kothe Student number: S3147959 Email: j.kothe.1@student.rug.nl Supervisor: P.J. Marques Morgado
Co-Assessor:
Faculty of Economics and Business University of Groningen
Duisenberg Building, Nettelbosje 2, 9747 AE Groningen, The Netherlands P.O. Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
http://www.rug.nl/feb
Table of Content
Abstract ... 4
Introduction ... 5
Literature review ... 7
Renewable Energy Industry ... 7
Background ... 7 Main players ... 7 Marketing ... 10 Marketing mix ... 10 Sustainable marketing ... 11 Customer education ... 11 Customer loyalty ... 12
Corporate Social Responsibility ... 13
Background ... 13
Triple bottom line ... 13
Transparency ... 14
Brand reputation ... 14
Resource-based view ... 16
VRIN framework ... 16
Resources and capabilities ... 16
Contrast to other theories ... 17
Conclusion ... 27
Limitations ... 28
Future research ... 28
Abstract
The development of the renewable energy industry that took place over previous decades introduced a new concept, also known as corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility suggests that there are other areas of business in need consideration of improvements, other than profit. Furthermore, as the renewable energy industry deals with huge amounts of risk and responsibilities, this specific industry is of particular importance.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the research question: How does CSR matter in the marketing promotion for firms in the renewable energy industry to gain competitive advantage? By considering key terms such as transparency, customer education, brand reputation, and customer loyalty, the activity of marketing promotion is evaluated in relation to competitive advantage. Moreover, by using theories addressing competitive advantage such as the resource-based and the stakeholder-resource-based view, the effect of CSR will be evaluated.
Introduction
In recent decades, an increasing amount of companies shifted their focus from profit to other business areas. Globalization, the internet and changing customer preferences require companies to incorporate such aspects into their operational strategies. The question at hand is how companies should act, especially when it comes to an industry that is full of dissatisfaction such as the energy industry.
The traditional energy industry was disrupted by the development of the renewable energy industry. The so-called ‘green energy’ is the production of energy without depleting the sources (NRDC, 2018). Due to the growing population, more energy is required and resources are scarce, which is why the renewable energy trend is so current.
Marketing is used to distinguish ones’ company from the competition, and raise customers’ interest in offered products or services (Marketing-Schools.org, 2012). At its core, marketing addresses the customer through different channels. By incorporating marketing concepts such as the marketing mix, key terms such as customer education, customer loyalty and brand reputation are investigated.
Using the concept of corporate social responsibility in the renewable energy sector will indicate the effects on marketing promotion, which is the aim of this research paper. Corporate social responsibility, or otherwise known as the triple bottom line, is a trend that has been spreading throughout the world. Adhering to the social and environmental concerns, therefore, affects the business operations. Thus, transparency and brand reputation are important key terms in the context of CSR.
Creating or sustaining a competitive advantage is discussed in different theories, such as the resource-based view or the stakeholder-based view. The resource-based view establishes a framework that evaluates capabilities and resources in the context of value, rarity, imitability, and non-substitutability (VRIN framework). The stakeholder-based view on the other hand suggests that a successful operation comes from the inclusion of stakeholders. Using the frameworks to assess the resources and capabilities, evaluates the competitive advantage.
Literature review
Renewable Energy Industry
Background
The energy industry is an enormous sector that is crucial in every country. In 2016, 1.88 million thousand toe (tons of oil equivalent) were produced worldwide, of which around 0.25 million thousand toe were produced in Europe (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018). The energy industry can be subdivided into categories such as; fossil fuel, electric power, nuclear power, renewable energy, and traditional energy industry. Each of these differ in the way they source energy. This research, however, will be focusing on the renewable energy industry.
Renewable energy, also called ‘clean energy’ is defined as producing energy without depleting the sources (NRDC, 2018). An example of non-depleting sources of energy are wind, water or solar energy. And especially due to the decreasing costs of innovation, more and more sources are being used to produce energy. In contrast to the non-renewable sources of energy, the sources of renewable energy are not exhaustive and do not take any time to replenish. Contrastingly, non-renewable energy is limited in the amount of resources, as materials such as oil, gas or coal are scarce. The growing population and the increasing demand for energy, requires new solutions. Renewable energy is not a new solution, but a process that has been used and developed throughout the last decades, and is the most environmentally friendly option.
Main players
FIGURE 1
Renewable energy participation of EU member states Source: Eurostat, 2020
On the left-hand side of the figure, one can see that slightly below 20% of the total production of energy in the EU was produced with renewable sources. This underlines how competitive the Nordic countries are when it comes to renewable energy. The Nordic countries have a goal to develop a more low-emission society, by further incorporating smart cities, electric mobility, and even cross-border grids (Hockenos, 2018).
More specifically, Sweden increased their share of renewable energy from 33% in 1990, to 54.5% in 2017, which also indicates that Sweden has continuously developed its sector, and has been at the frontier for a longer time now (Sweden.se, 2020). Thus, one should mention that only a few countries consume as much energy per capita as Sweden, however, due to the use of renewable energy sources, the emission of carbon is still considered low when one compares it to other countries. But how does Sweden create such an advantage in the renewable energy industry? The two renewable energy sources that are most frequently used are hydropower for electricity, and bioenergy for heating. However, Sweden additionally uses wind power, solar energy, wave power, heat pumps, ethanol, and body heat.
Next to the Nordic countries, a leading renewable energy market is the one in Germany. An example of the driven market shows the 2030 goal, where Germany aims to produce 65% of the energy from renewable sources (Climate Council, 2019). The effectiveness of Germany’s current renewable energy industry is highlighted by the fact that Germany produced enough renewable energy to supply every household for one year. The biggest used renewables in Germany are solar and wind energy, and biomass (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, 2020). The leading position is partly due to the Renewable Energy Act (EEG, Erneuerbare Energie Gesetz) (BWE, 2018). This regulation supports the development of the renewable energy industry and was only put into effect in April 2000. The act requires the prioritization of renewable energy over traditional energy sources and promises compensation for participation in the renewable energy industry. The target of the EEG is that by 2025, 40-45% of electricity that is consumed in Germany, is sourced from renewables (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, 2020). In the German renewable energy industry, the company participating the most is EnBW, followed by RWE/Innogy and Vattenfall (Amelang & Bieler, 2018).
Marketing
Due to the highly competitive nature of business, marketing is an important tool to compete on markets in different industries. Marketers aim to get potential customers to show interest in a purchase, or aim for customer loyalty to the brand. Marketing can be in the form of B2B, B2C, or B2G, however, as this research is looking into the effect of CSR on Marketing, it will focus on Business to consumers (B2C).
Marketing mix
Core activities of marketing are addressed in the marketing mix framework. It was originally created by Neil H. Borden in 1963 and incorporates 4 P’s (Goi, 2009). To date the four dimensions of the framework are; (1) product, (2) price, (3) promotion, and (4) place (figure 2) (Constantinides, 2006).
FIGURE 2
Marketing mix
Within marketing promotion, there are different types of promotion. These are for example sales promotion, advertisement, personal selling or even e-mail marketing (Goi, 2009). Therefore, any type of marketing promotion is how the company communicates to its customers. Thus, marketing communication is a specific field, which is based on the skill of communication between company and customers (Constantinides, 2006). Knowing how to communicate to potential and existing customers can influence marketing promotion radically. The marketing area in the renewable energy industry works more as an awareness increasing or knowledge building way.
Sustainable marketing
Green marketing, which is a specific form of marketing efforts, deals with environmental considerations of producers for creating a product (Kenton, 2019). However, the renewable energy industry is ‘green’ at its core, thus using green marketing to market renewable energy is contradicting. Therefore, an important keyword to consider in the renewable energy industry and marketing is customer education (Suh M. , Greene, Israilov, & Rho, 2015).
Customer education
Alton defined customer education as the role of a company to educate the customer to increase the potential of purchase (2015). A more specific definition by Meer (1984) of the term implies “Any purposeful, sustained and organized learning activity that is designed to impart attitudes, knowledge or skills to customers or potential customers by a business or industry. It can range from self-instructional material for a particular product to a formal course related to a product or service” (Suh M. , Greene, Israilov, & Rho, 2015, S. 263). Thus, the article by Suh et al. suggests that educating existing and potential customers will increase customer satisfaction.
Customer loyalty
Corporate Social Responsibility
Background
Previously, firms primarily focused on economic costs such as production and managerial costs, but due to increasing social demands, this focus has shifted (Pätäri et al., 2012). Therefore, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a term that is becoming more relevant.
The general consensus about CSR is that, next to the economic side, companies should consider environmental and social aspects (Wu and Hu, 2019). A corporate social responsible approach implies that operational and strategic activities are carried out in an ethical and transparent manner. John Hill (2001) further adds that sustainability is the “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (pp. 32).
Triple bottom line
Pätäri et al. (2012) further divides CSR into three pillars (see figure 3), namely the economic, social and environmental dimension. The concept of three pillars of CSR corresponds with the theory of the triple bottom line (Uniamikogbo & Arowoshegbe, 2016). In the triple bottom line, the economic dimension is referred to as profit, the social dimension as people, and the planet dimension as planet. Both theories complement each other, as the core idea of both is addressing the concept that there are other areas in businesses that are important, other than profit. The people dimension covers the societies, as such need to be satisfied to be profitable. Additionally, the planet dimension addresses environmentally friendly processes that should be incorporated to be overall sustainable.
FIGURE 3
Transparency
More specifically, companies that adhere to social and environmental demands, commonly share the same concept of transparency. Thus, different researchers suggest that transparency is the basis of corporate social responsibility and is primarily based on reputation mechanisms (Dubbink, Graafland, & Van Liedekerke, 2008). Transparency in business operations improves allocation efficiency, dynamic efficiency and innovation, which further highlights that it it not only a requirement, but an innovative way forward.
A correlated topic to transparency is accountability. As transparency raises the awareness of the consumers, it additionally increases the accountability of a company. This means that when a company operates transparently and honestly, it must take accountability. A company operating in the energy industry for example, should take accountability of the scarce resources, and aim to find solutions to the specific concern. This further ties into the brand reputation, as addressing a CSR concern, simultaneously adds to the sustainable development of the company.
Brand reputation
Next to the advantages of transparency that have been mentioned, another benefit coming from transparent operations is the connected brand reputation. Companies can either have a good reputation, such as for example German car manufacturers, however, in the case of the avoidance of transparency, a good example of the consequences is the case of Volkswagen (VW) in 2015 (Hotten, 2015). In this specific case, VW did not adhere to transparency requirements, which resulted in scandal, influencing the corporate brand and its sales. This shows that being transparent and accountable about products and services towards consumers, businesses and governments, increases ones’ brand reputation.
effective returns (Isa, 2012). By implementing a long-term strategy that incorporates all three pillars of CSR, value is created not only for the corporation, but for all stakeholders.
Resource-based view
VRIN framework
An important framework for assessing a company’s resources in terms of competitive advantages is called the resource-based view (RBV), which was created in 1938. It was re-developed by Barney in 1991, and has since become a well-established framework (Barney, Wright, & Ketchen, 2001). The framework consists of four criteria, that assess a company’s resources. The criteria are as followed; valuable (V), rare (R), inimitable (I), and non-substitutable (N). Together, these criteria form the VRIN-framework, depicted in figure 4.
FIGURE 4
VRIN framework
A valuable resource implies that the resource has a specific value to the customer. Rare, indicates that the product should not be offered by every company on the market, and inimitable adds to this point, indicating that the resource should not be able to be copied easily. Lastly, non-substitutable means that the product cannot be exchanged with a different product that does the same job. A resource is only a competitive advantage, if all four criteria have been met. Resources that exhibit only two of the four criteria cannot be called a competitive advantage.
Resources and capabilities
In a highly concentrated market, companies will aim to drive out the competition that (1) shows similar characteristics, (2) have a low-cost strategy, or (3) a high-quality strategy (Wernerfelt, 2014). But how does the RBV contribute to marketing? Companies are known to advertise their strengths, hence most of the promotion material covers information about their advantage above the competition, also called the competitive advantage.
Contrast to other theories
Next to the RBV, there are other theories that address competitive advantage, however, each of these theories differ in their view. For example, the market-based view (MBV), focusses on an outside-in approach, whereas the RBV follows the inside-out approach. An inside-out approach indicates that competitive advantages are derived from a company’s resources and capabilities. The MBV and the outside-in approach focus on the market environment, and use frameworks such as Porter’s 5 forces, that evaluate the market, and adjust their strategy in coherence (McGee, 2015).
Stakeholder-based view
Stakeholder Management
In the current business environment, stakeholders are key to success. Customers, competitors, suppliers and all other stakeholders of a company play a major role in the stakeholder-based view (SBV). At its core, the SBV establishes that profitability and productivity is achieved by incorporating all stakeholders. Hence, the SBV views companies as centers of contracts, indicating that there is a network from which a competitive advantage is derived (Coff, 1999). The framework therefore evaluates corporate performance by the relationships with a company’s various stakeholders (see figure 5) (Clarkson, 1995).
FIGURE 5
The firm and its stakeholders
Within the renewable energy industry, stakeholders are crucial. Thus, the government plays a huge role in this industry, as regulations are derived from national and international rule-markers. The creation and management of relationships, called stakeholder management, incorporates handling government or social demands. Examples for social demands deal with resource scarcity and pollution. The stakeholder involvement of the government deals with sustainable goals, taxation, and as mentioned beforehand, regulations.
Drivers
energy. The SDG 7 requires access to affordable and sustainable energy for everyone. Incorporating stakeholders aligns with the concept of socialism, which indicates that the society should be driving the force of business (Wu and Hu, 2019). Thus, since socialism is one of the bottom lines of CSR, one can establish the linkages between MBV and CSR.
The SBV and marketing are connected, as SBV implies the incorporation of the population. As marketing is the direct contact with customers, it is highly important to consider stakeholders when creating marketing material. Thus, as mentioned before, in the renewable energy industry education and awareness are key to marketing. By marketing the renewable energy sources, the customer can decide to change energy suppliers.
Research Design
This paper aims to answer the following research question: “How does Corporate Social
Responsibility matter in the Marketing Promotion for firms in the Renewable Energy Industry to gain advantage?”
Following this research, the research onion by Saunders et al. was used (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2016). The philosophy of this research is interpretivist, as the aim of the research is to create a better understanding of the topic and provide background and richness of data. Thus, it incorporates the nature of reality as socially constructed and focuses on qualitative analysis rather than quantitative analysis (Research Methodology, 2019).
The research approach follows the inductive approach, as the paper initiates research from bottom up, meaning the research is approached with the specifics and the hypothesis. Moreover, because the research is solely based on literature review rather than empirical data, the inductive approach was chosen. Since there is no presence of empirical data, the research will focus on existing literature found from sources such as Business Source Premier, Google Scholar, and Science Direct. Thus, the study focuses on archival research, therefore, using information from different literature and combining the information will enable the research to answer the gap, whether CSR influences marketing promotion in terms of competitive advantage.
Analysis
After establishing the baseline of the research, the following section will present and answer the hypotheses. In the literature review, each element of the conceptual model has been presented and discussed.
Within marketing, the marketing mix addresses the four primary dimensions, namely product, price, place and promotion. Each of these dimensions address different specifics of a product and its marketing. Marketing promotion, which is the area of interest within this research, aims to use methods to increase the potential customer base. Marketing communication is part of marketing promotion, and deals with the ways of communication between the company and its customers. Therefore, important key terms for this analysis are customer education, customer loyalty, and brand reputation. Thus, since the aim of this paper is to investigate how CSR matters in the marketing promotion for companies operating in the renewable energy industry, the triple bottom line was introduced to differentiate between the areas of CSR. The interconnected term of CSR and marketing promotion is transparency, as transparent operations educate the consumer. Thus, transparency is deeply intertwined with accountability and trust. Lastly, this research is investigating a competitive advantage, therefore, concepts such as the RBV and the SBV are supporting the analysis.
The following sections are presented in order by hypothesis, moving from the left of the conceptual framework to the right.
Hypothesis 1: Transparent marketing promotion leads to customer education
The first hypothesis suggests that transparent marketing promotion leads to customer education. Transparency, as defined in the literature review, is the actual representation of processes and financial resources. Thus, transparency is tied to honesty and accountability. Marketing itself is not a competitive advantage, but the creativity and uniqueness can be a factor influencing the competitive marketing materials.
energy industry, as the reports show otherwise. The SBV adds to the transparency principle, since incorporating major stakeholders is the core of CSR.
Therefore, a company promoting transparency simultaneously focuses on customer education, as these concepts are closely tied. Further, through educating customers, companies increase the skill so the customer, and can, therefore, expect a decision-making process that is based on facts, rather than compelling marketing material.
Hypothesis 2: Customer education improves brand reputation
The second hypothesis addressing the causality between customer education and brand reputation, is supported based on the literature review. As established in hypothesis 1, transparent marketing promotion creates customer education. Therefore, having an influence on a customer mindset, can in turn improve the brand reputation. Brand reputation is attained through honesty and confidence of the customer in the company. However, dishonesty will result in a bad brand reputation, which is a huge barrier to overcome in the long run, which was shown by the example of VW.
Customer education further implies that the customer has knowledge of the matter, which further highlights the importance of transparency and accountability. Within the context of the renewable energy industry, educating a customer is an effort made for the society. Thus, sustainability is a current trend, which a huge amount of companies already try to incorporate in their businesses. However, not all companies are incorporating CSR practices for the reason being sustainability, but, they create a CSR brand reputation just for the marketing sake.
However, within the context of this research, customer education in the renewable energy industry is an apparent sign of the building of brand reputation.
Hypothesis 3: Customer education leads to customer loyalty
environmental pollution and the scarcity of resources, invites the customer to change their mindset towards a more environmentally friendly outlook. Thus, raising awareness of environmental and social problems is considering the customer as a part of the business. Therefore, educating one’s customers creates an environment of confidence and trust. This further translates into loyalty. However, to sustain the loyalty, educational efforts need to be continuous.
Hypothesis 4: Brand reputation is a source of competitive advantage
Brand reputation, which arises from customer education and other marketing efforts, is a resource not a lot of companies have. The resource of a good brand identity adds to marketing as well as social and environmental concerns. Therefore, the following section is investigating whether brand reputation is a source of competitive advantage.
In the depicted table (1), brand reputation is evaluated in terms of the RBV. A good brand reputation is valuable, rare and non-substitutable. Although brand reputations are imitable, it is not possible to copy the same reputation, as other external factors influence the brand reputation, other than the internal efforts. Here, for example, corporate culture is an influencing factor. Applying the VRIN framework, brand reputation is a competitive advantage, since it checks all 4 dimensions of the framework positively.
TABLE 1
Brand reputation (VRIN-check)
VRIN Brand reputation
Valuable Ö
Rare Ö
Inimitable Ö
Non-substitutable Ö
earlier in this research, VW hurt its own brand reputation by not adhering to CSR practices, and more specifically the concept of transparently. Therefore, having a good brand reputation can be considered a competitive advantage, whilst having a bad reputation can be considered a competitive disadvantage.
Concluding on both applied theories, brand reputation is a source of competitive advantage, especially in the CSR heavy, renewable energy industry. Both from an inside-out, and an outside-in approach, brand reputation is an advantage a company can attain over its competition.
Hypothesis 5: Customer loyalty is a competitive advantage
Hypothesis 5 suggests that customer loyalty is a source of competitive advantage. Customer loyalty arises through customer education, as established beforehand, therefore, the question at hand is whether customer loyalty is considered a competitive advantage.
The RBV applied on customer loyalty suggests that customer loyalty is a source of
competitive advantage to an extent (table 2). Customer loyalty is valuable, as it indicates a continuous amount of sales, rare, since for example products in the commodity sector can be interchanged from different companies. However, within the renewable energy industry the competition is slightly lower than in the commodity industry, making the interchange of products from different companies difficult. Moreover, customer loyalty is imitable, however, having the exact same customer loyalty as the competition is very uncommon. Therefore, it checks the inimitable column in the VRIN check. Further, since customers are not
substitutable, it is non-substitutable. Next to brand reputation, which is closely correlated to customer loyalty, there are no other ways to sustain a customer base, whilst calling it a competitive advantage.
TABLE 2
Customer loyalty (VRIN-check)
VRIN Customer loyalty
Valuable Ö
Rare Ö
Inimitable Ö
Conceptual Model
In this section of the report, the conceptual model is introduced. The conceptual model is derived from the literature review. Starting with marketing promotion in the renewable energy industry, which requires transparent processes and thereby educates the consumer. Thus, educating consumers results in a brand reputation as well as customer loyalty. Concluding on the research, the aim is to evaluate if brand reputation and customer loyalty lead to a
competitive advantage. A company which has a brand reputation, can educate its customers to increase customer loyalty. An increase in customer loyalty is a competitive advantage, which follows the aim of the research question, how CSR matters in the marketing promotion of the renewable energy industry.
FIGURE 6
Conceptual model
Hypothesis 1: Transparent marketing promotion leads to a good brand reputation. Hypothesis 2: Customer education improves brand reputation.
Hypothesis 3: Customer education leads to customer loyalty.
Conclusion
The aim of this paper is to investigate whether CSR matters for marketing promotion for the goal of gaining a competitive advantage. To be able to answer the main research question, 5 hypotheses were created, investigating the causality between marketing promotion, customer education, customer loyalty, brand reputation and the competitive advantage.
The conceptual framework follows the causality that exists between marketing promotion and competitive advantage. Since the renewable energy industry is filled with risks and uncertainty, transparency is the key to be able to gain competitive advantage. Especially because CSR is well incorporated at the core of the operations in the renewable energy industry, it is important to address customer education and loyalty, as well as brand reputation.
The first hypothesis, suggesting transparent marketing promotion results in a good brand reputation can be supported in reflectance of the literature review. As established, when marketing promotion is done transparently, the customer is educated. Through education, customers can base their decisions on facts. This far, the literature supports the claims.
Investigating, whether brand reputation and customer loyalty are competitive advantages, established that both can be considered an advantage. Although brand reputation and customer loyalty are imitable by the competition, the exact reputation cannot be replicated, only copied to an extent. Therefore, having a good image or a loyal customer base is a fact that heavily influences the competitive position on the market.
Companies located in the renewable energy industry should therefore incorporate a strategy following CSR principles. Next to transparent behavior, a specific skill of marketing is needed, to create marketing materials which are educational. Whilst customer loyalty and brand reputation is hard to realize, its benefits in the competition landscape are radical. Thus, making it apparent that incorporating customers can influence the competitive position.
competitive market of Germany, where the government plays an important role to reach sustainable goals. Not only Germany, but also Nordic countries such as Sweden and Denmark, and the Scottish government put priority on the environment and expect companies to adhere to such needs.
Concluding, companies in the renewable energy industry should invest in marketing that supports the core of the industry; environmental and social demands. Therefore, using marketing promotion as a source of education for the customers can increase the customer education, and therefore brand loyalty and brand reputation.
Limitations
A limitation of this research is the absence of empirical data to support the hypothesis. Since the collection of empirical data from renewable energy industries is hard to come by, the limitation is that the perspective of businesses was omitted. Investigating the perspective of firms towards the incorporation of CSR practices could add to this research. Thus, empirical data could compare numbers from different years, evaluating specific strategies that follow the CSR principle. From such analysis, reliable suggestions about strategies could be made clear. However, the renewable energy industry is ever changing, making recommendations in the long-term difficult.
A further limitation is the presentation of the main players of the renewable energy industry. Since information about actual participation in the total energy production cannot be found from the biggest players in the industry. Therefore, the approach used was participation in the total EU share of energy produced. However, investigating the biggest participators can have a major influence on outcomes.
Future research
Moreover, empirical longitudinal data about the implementation of strategies building customer loyalty and brand reputation should be assessed to investigate the actual impact of CSR principles on the competitive advantage.
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