Green marketing is a way to use the environmental benefits of a product or service to promote sales. Many consumers will choose products that do not damage the environment over less environmentally friendly products, even if they cost more. With green marketing, advertisers focus on environmental benefits to sell products such as biodegradable diapers, energy-efficient light bulbs, and environmentally safe detergents.

People buy billions of dollars worth of goods and services every year—many which harm the environment in how they are harvested, made, or used. Environmentalists support green marketing to encourage people to use environmentally preferable alternatives, and to offer incentives to manufacturers that develop more environmentally beneficial products.

The concept of green marketing has been around at least since the first Earth Day in 1970. But the idea did not catch on until the 1980s, when rising public interest in the environment led to a...