Wubbo Ockels and Director-General of Ministry to give Honours lectures in Sustainable Marketing

The Faculty of Economics and Business will offer talented Honours students at the University of Groningen a lecture series on sustainability and marketing seen in the light of various disciplines. On Thursday 17 February, Wubbo Ockels will open the series with a guest lecture. Bernard ter Haar, Director-General at the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) and alumnus of the University of Groningen will also give one of the lectures.

‘Sustainability was long seen to be at odds with making a profit. However, we now see more and more clearly that they are in fact related’, says marketing lecturer and lecture programme coordinator Wander Jager of the Faculty of Economics and Business. ‘Many companies tend to perform better when they switch to sustainable production, with Unilever being a good current example.’ Marketing is the central perspective for the lecture series, since choosing sustainability hinges on communication with the consumer, and on putting new products in the marketplace.

A society-wide transition to sustainability requires changes in such things as production, consumption, management and technology. ‘In the lecture series we approach sustainable marketing from different perspectives, so students learn to think in multidisciplinary ways about sustainability’, Jager says.

The Honours College of the University of Groningen is intended for talented and motivated students; they take an additional Honours programme worth 45 ECTS credit points in addition to the regular 180 ECTS Bachelor’s degree programme.

Wubbo Ockels, professor at Delft University of Technology and University of Groningen alumnus, will focus on sustainability and the related challenges to society in his opening lecture. Bernard ter Haar will lecture on 17 March 2011. The Director-General of the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) will speak on the role of government in stimulating a transition to sustainability.

For more information: Dr Wander Jager