Redrawing the venn diagram of sustainable development: advancing marketing through an eco-centric lens

This commentary reimagines marketing’s role in sustainable development by positioning the natural environment as the foundational stakeholder that underpins private, public, and social sector activity. The proposed framework challenges traditional models, which can obscure the ecological and societal interdependencies underlying all human exchanges, and investigates three stakeholder interactions: responsible commerce, equitable progress, and collaborative stewardship. Recommendations include reframing value propositions to consider ecological limits, leveraging cross-sector partnerships to advance sustainability, embedding stewardship as a core principle in marketing education and research, and developing tools that make environmental costs visible to consumers.