Business process, product development, and partnerships can all be analyzed for better, more responsible alternatives, according to a Marketing Profs article. And marketers are the people who to look at a company’s strategy and vision and find opportunities for product differentiation and customer loyalty that integrate solutions to social and environmental problems.

A few tips from the article:

• Look at the industry your company is in. What are the social and environmental hazards or issues? Is there a way to address them and at the same time provide your company with an advantage (lower cost, higher value, unique differentiator)?
• Get ahead of the curve for what will attract tomorrow’s purchasers by incorporating social responsibility today. Moreover, consumers consider choosing environmentally safe products or those developed by socially responsible companies a badge of honor.
• Invest for the long-term – results can take time to impact the bottom line.
• Use grassroot efforts to deploy social responsibility across the company to illuminate for management the advantages to this new way of givingA?AA¢AA¢aAA¬AA¢a?A¬?and getting in return.