There has been a steadily growing concern by governments, NGO's and international agencies regarding the rising rate of consumption in industrialised countries. Despite warnings and evidence showing the relationship between rising consumption and climate change, and the uptake of initiatives and education at business and consumer levels, the trend towards consuming more and more continues unabated. Questions have been raised regarding the relationship between marketing and rising consumption. In line with this, the research will investigate the responsibility of marketing to encourage consumers to moderate their consumption behaviour.  The research will address three broad objectives:· To identify whether marketing professionals feel responsible for encouraging consumers to moderate their consumption· To identify and explain the reasons why marketers would encourage moderation of consumption· To understand the construct 'marketing responsibility to encourage moderation of consumption' and explain the influences upon the acceptance of responsibilityThe research adopted a mixed-methods design. Qualitative research methods were used to explore perceptions of responsibility and develop a typology of motivations to explain why marketers would encourage moderation. An online, quantitative survey (n=359) was conducted in the USA and UK in January 2011. The results evidenced an acceptance of responsibility which is suggestive of a changing role for the marketing discipline. The results found support for the typology of motivations which were developed during the qualitative phase of the research, in particular, highlighting the importance of ethical and cost-saving motivations. The level of environmentalism in the workplace, and in the private life of the marketer, was found to influence the acceptance of marketing responsibility to encourage moderation. Finally, the motivation to remain competitive was also associated with the acceptance of marketing responsibility. The acceptance of responsibility to encourage moderation of consumption highlights a changing role for marketing which could potentially signify far-reaching changes in practical terms, in the way marketing is taught, and in the public policy domain.

During the last decades the importance of sustainability has steadily increased and nowadays, sustainability is not only a governmental responsibility any more. Besides the concept of sus- tainability, the field of brand management has gained more relevance in the last decades as well. Today, companies invest large amounts of money in the development of their brands. Considering the increasing importance of both concepts, the question for a combination of these two concepts arises. As the potential of sustainability in the brand management research field is not exploited to date and the focus of such a combination is mainly on the operative part, this study developed the concept of Sustainable Strategic Brand Management. With a focus on the automobile industry a first step of a practical-based research is done. The analy- sis of the integration of sustainability in the strategic brand management through a multiple case study of the three automobile manufacturing companies Daimler AG, Volvo Group and Volkswagen AG, is the most suitable and effective method to answer the research question of this study: How do automobile manufacturing companies integrate sustainability in their strategic brand management process? The main finding of this study is that automobile manufacturing companies integrate sustainability to different extents and manners in the seven steps of the strategic brand management process. Moreover, there are different levels and potentials for the integration of sustainability in the strategic brand management process. However, there is still potential and demand to improve the integration of sustainability in the strategic brand management process.