Using the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module in Marketing Management (BUSN 340)

Tim Bode, Wittenberg University

Course Description

Course stressing management applications of fundamental theories and concepts within the areas of market selection, product development, distribution management, pricing and promotional strategy.

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Relationship of the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module to Your Course

Since the course involves a semester long project to research a market/consumer, develop a product and the related distribution, pricing, and promotion strategies, the module was introduced as a way to consider the sustainability aspects of developing a product and distributing it in the marketplace. As such, it took place at about the midterm point in the course. Prior to this we had covered the marketing concepts of ethics & CSR, Consumer Behavior, Segmentation & Targeting, and Marketing Research. We had also covered the NSF-BASICS concepts of the personal waste audit, the videos related to t-shirt, chocolate, and cell phone production, and the gallery tour.

Integrating the Module into Your Course

The common exercise, that I just kind of had to insert into the course. Because I teach a marketing course, normally we don't talk a lot about these types of issues in the course with regards to marketing concepts and theories. So, I put that in near the beginning of the course. I said, "We're working with the NSF on this and we're trying to develop a module that can be put into several different classes to help us all (become) more aware of sustainability and how it affects us all." And as a basic, overall tie-in, I always say, "Well, you know, it's a real good idea to try to be as sustainable as you can. Because if you go about producing a product and then selling in a way that it does damage to your customers, pretty soon you won't have any customers." That being the worst-case scenario. I just blatantly stuck it out there. The course module was a little easier to do, because in the process of teaching marketing, they all have to do a group project where they develop a product, decide how they're going to distribute it, decide how they're going to price it, and then decide how they're going to advertise and promote it. So basically, the four P's of marketing. In that course I said, "Okay, for your particular product, you have to come up with an aspect of that product that we can build a circular economy flowchart around." So maybe it's the producing of the product itself that causes issues. Maybe it's the transportation of the product. Maybe it's the way the package is product. But anyway, they had to go through each of the boxes, the extraction, the production, the retailing, the usage, and then whether it ended up in a landfill or it came back around. And so that part was relatively easy to integrate into the process.

What Worked Well

Well, I can't say as anything worked super well, but I can't say as anything went terribly either. It just seemed like they all accepted what we were doing and put forth their best effort to try to learn it and integrate it. That's about all I can say in that area.

Challenges and How They Were Addressed

The challenge was always trying to figure out the best time and place to introduce things and to get it all done in the course of what we were trying to do. You know, still stay on task and track as far as what I had scheduled to be done at certain times. I personally, tried to integrate as much of it as I could into the class time, giving them time in class to do things such as some of the research for the gallery tours and the making of the posters for the gallery tours. And then of course we did do the gallery tours. And I had two classes. Keeping the two classes in balance was a little bit difficult too because one class was a little quicker on getting things done and getting things posted up, and the other class was a little slower. I had to have to find things for the other class to do while the one class caught up. But we got through it.

Student Response to the Module and Activities

They didn't get super overexcited about it, but they didn't get super over-negative about it, and I think they eventually grasped what we were trying to do. It's always interesting to me from the standpoint of trying to get students, and anybody really, to think through a whole process. For example, when we were doing the common module, one of the classes picked the cell phone, and we get to retailing they'd say, "Oh, retailing. Well, you know, what gives? How does retailing affect sustainability at all?" And I said, "Well, that product, sits in a store and that store uses electricity to run the lights, to run the air conditioning, to run the systems that run the cell phone product." I said, "I don't know about you, but I see very few stores in the United States that have solar panels on them." I said, "That electricity's coming from somewhere. And so, how's that electricity being generated? Is it being generated in a sustainable way, a not sustainable way? My guess is, I don't know. Sustainable electricity in the United States, I think still only accounts for maybe somewhere between 10 to 20% of the total power grid. My guess is, 70, 80% of what they're getting is non-sustainable." And then they say, "Oh, it's passive." I can say, "Oh yeah, you're right." But that's common for anybody to not think about the whole picture. So those things were eye-opening to them, that everything has a little effect on sustainability.