**1. Introduction**

The increase in world population and lack of environmental consciousness has determined unsustainable consumption patterns. Unsustainable consumption has caused severe environmental problems such as increased greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, global warming, and natural resource depletion [1,2]. The rapid intensification of these problems raises the need for sustainability measures at every level of production, consumption, and general livelihood [2]. Therefore, "sustainability has become the mantra for companies seeking to create a competitive advantage in the global marketplace" [3] (p. 118).

Due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, energy prices have hit all-time highs. The impact of the war and sanctions on Russia as a primary supplier of gas to Europe has determined a 3–4-fold increase in energy prices [4]. Under such circumstances, societies face the need for alternative and more ecological energy resources. The development and diversification of renewable energy sources have become fundamental issues of Europe's future attempts at sustainability and overcoming adverse climate changes.

Green marketing solutions have created a platform for sustainable consumption globally [1]. Even though the concept of green marketing has been circulating for quite some time, it currently enjoys a revival in popularity in the business world [5]. At the stage when customers' knowledge of renewable energy-related terms (such as renewable power, carbon footprint, and carbon offset) is increasing in scope and depth, businesses gain more pressure and opportunities to employ green marketing strategies [6]. Organizations embrace green marketing challenges to meet their customers' ever-growing demand for

**Citation:** Skackauskiene, I.; Vilkaite-Vaitone, N. Green Marketing and Customers' Purchasing Behavior: A Systematic Literature Review for Future Research Agenda. *Energies* **2023**, *16*, 456. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/en16010456

Academic Editor: Alban Kuriqi

Received: 24 November 2022 Revised: 20 December 2022 Accepted: 22 December 2022 Published: 31 December 2022

**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

sustainable consumption. Green marketing has gained considerable importance in the contemporary marketplace [1]. This type of marketing provides a competitive advantage, improves organizational performance, and increases customer satisfaction [7,8]. Green marketing solutions enhance customer behavior indicators, i.e., purchase intention and energy consumption [2,9–11].

Even though research on green marketing and its impact on customer behavior has experienced vast growth in the number of publications in recent years, there exists a lack of conceptual clarity on the relationship between these two concepts. The absence of a detailed clarification of the impact of green marketing solutions on specific customers' purchasing indicators obstructs the exchange and development of scientific knowledge. It prevents marketers from finding out which green marketing solutions are the most promising in terms of customer purchasing behavior. Therefore, in this study, we raise the following research question: which green marketing solutions affect customers' purchasing behavior? To answer this question, there is a need for a review that analyses and synthesizes an existing array of studies in the field. In this respect, this research aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of green marketing and its impact on customers' purchasing behavior to develop a research agenda that helps to identify promising areas for future research. The review utilized the PRISMA approach and covered 166 articles. These articles present the results of the studies that tend to remain largely isolated from the others. Considering the contextual differences between the studies, integrating their perspectives into a common framework can help to provide a holistic lens upon the green marketing phenomenon and its impact on customers' purchasing behavior.

In the background of systematic reviews on green marketing and its impact on customers' purchasing behavior, no research has categorized green marketing solutions based on the marketing planning horizon. The classification of green marketing practices as strategic, tactical, and operational green marketing solutions makes the study relevant, since the authors, based on this classification, were able to identify the impacted measures of customers' purchasing behavior on each level.

The theoretical and practical contribution of the current research can be summarized as follows:


The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: Section 1 discusses the structure of green marketing solutions that may affect customer behavior. Aiming for a methodologically rigorous literature analysis, this section presents a conceptual framework. This framework will later be applied for the classification of the literature sample. The following section describes the methodology for the systematic literature review. A systematic literature review focusing on customers' purchasing behavior is conducted in Section 3. Based on the systematic literature review results, we have prepared a discussion, conclusions, and suggestions for future research in Section 4.
