Work

Green Marketing as a System of Value Creation: A Conceptual Framework Linking Sustainable Practices and Consumer Life Satisfaction

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Although sustainability marketing is gaining popularity, a comprehensive understanding of how green marketing practices affect consumers’ overall well-being remains lacking. Existing studies focus on firm-level sustainability actions or isolated consumer responses. Their mechanisms linking marketing practices, value creation, and life satisfaction are not sufficiently theorized. To bridge the gap, this study develops an integrative conceptual framework that explains how sustainable value creation mediates the enhancement of consumer life satisfaction through the implementation of green marketing practices. The study employs a two-phase integrative review design. Three core constructs, green marketing practices, sustainable value creation, and consumer life satisfaction, are identified in a synthesis of sustainability marketing, consumer value, and well-being literature. Secondly, the initial framework is systematically rooted and refined by drawing on influential empirical research published in marketing and sustainability journals from 2016 to 2025. Analytically constructed tables organize this synthesis by assessing the dominant empirical patterns related to marketing practices, multidimensional value creation, and pathways to life satisfaction. The research advances sustainability marketing theory by reconceptualizing green marketing as a system of consumption-shaping practices and by positioning sustainable value creation as the central mechanism linking firm actions to consumer life satisfaction.

Source: Sustainability

DOI: 10.3390/su18031319

Authors: Theodore Tarnanidis, Vijaya Kittu Manda, Bruno Sousa