1.

in the late 1980s and early 1990s; it was first discussed much earlier. The American Marketing Association (AMA) held the first workshop on "Ecological Marketing" in 1975. The proceedings of this workshop resulted in one of the first books on green marketing entitled "Ecological Marketing (Akter, 2012). Many people believe that green marketing refers solely to the promotion or advertising of products with environmental characteristics, especially in his buying decision. Green marketing or environmental marketing refers to ecological products such as healthy food, Phosphate Free, Recyclable, Refillable Ozone friendly, and eco friendly. In general, green marketing is a much broader concept that can be applied to consumer goods, industrial goods and even services. Green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, as well as modifying advertising (Akter, 2012). Further, the importance of Green Marketing can well be emphasized by stating the fact that majority of consumers in all the countries want to buy from environmentally responsible companies. Consumers say environmental consciousness is an important corporate priority -ranking behind good value, trustworthy, and cares about customers. Consumers expect green companies to engage in a broad set of actions, particularly reducing toxics, recycling and managing water. Many consumers prefer to spend more on green products, especially in developing economies ( Tiwari, Tripathi, Srivastava, yadav , 2011) Green customer loyalty as the customer wanted to maintain a relation with an institute which involved environmental or green concerns, and committed to re buy or re-patronize a preferred product consistently in the future ( Chang and Fong, 2010). In this way, recently environmental change issues in terms of climate changes came to the forefront. It is a threat to social, economic stability and sustainable human existence. There is no doubt that climate change affects the fundamental requirement for health -clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient green food and secured shelter. Third world countries like India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan etc can place good phenomena in climate change through adapting day, Consumers are very much sensitive in few factors. These factors are consumer's loyalty about green product, Global warming and environmental safety, quality of product, concern about extra price, Luxury and Environmental awareness. We must find an opportunity to enhance product's performance and strengthen our customer's loyalty to green product (Akter, 2012). Generally studies have focused on product quality, corporate image, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty, but only some of them have explored about green innovation or environmental management aspects. Bhatnagar and Grewal (2002) pointed that, Green marketing is still in its infancy and a lot of research is to be done on green marketing to fully explore its potential. Therefore, it is important to empirically examine the green marketing strategies and its impact on customer satisfaction in the developing country like Sri Lanka.

There is growing interest among the consumers all over the world regarding protection of environment. Green marketing is a marketing strategy that can help organization get more customers and make more money ( Nandini and Deshpande, 2011) . But only if they do it right. Generally, the green marketing provides more benefits to nations. Benefits such as, ensuring sustained long term growth along with profitability; saving money in the long term; helping companies market their products and services; keeping the environment aspects in mind; helping in accessing in mind; accessing the new markets and enjoying competitive advantage. Meantime, green marketing has to face challenges, such as , Green products require renewable and recycle material, which is costly; Requires a technology, which requires huge investment in research and development; Majority of the people are not aware of green products and their uses; Majority of the consumers are not willing to pay a premium on green products. Even though, the green marketing strategies provide the more strength to the people in the countries in the globalized level (Akter, 2012). Especially in Sri Lanka, the terms as green economy, sustainable development, and industrial pollution have already been taken as the policy issues in the environmental management by the Central Environment Authority. In this context, this study focuses on the green marketing practices and customer satisfaction in the Jaffna district, Sri Lanka. In northern part of the Sri Lanka, Jaffna district, after the thirty year ethnic war especially in the post war context, the government focuses the Jaffna district as one of the emerging industrial districts. The infrastructure developments in terms of road, irrigation, electricity, telecommunication, port development, rail way development etc have already been planned and implemented. Meantime, these industrial activities should ensure the sustainable development in the country level. The policy makers and other authoritative bodies in the government should focus on the gap effectively. And also, the people in the country must have the better awareness of the eco friendly aspects to ensure the survival of the future generation. Further, this study focuses on the leather goods. Environmental considerations in production and product development are becoming of increasing importance in the leather industry due to legislative pressure, cost savings and emerging Green markets. In this way, New Marketing Concept as Green marketing has not been fully studied in the globalized level (Kleijn, Hansen, Huppes, McLaren, Pesonen, Steevels, & Wel , 1999). Therefore, the new paradigm as the Green Marketing should be studied in the customer's perspective, which will give the new insights to the marketing literature. Meantime, studies on green marketing are in the infancy level even in developed countries. Due to that, this study surely gives new strategic insights to the companies which market the consumer goods in the emerging district as the Jaffna in Sri Lanka.

What extent Green Marketing Practices influence on the Customer satisfaction in the Sri Lankan Context? III.

The Main objective of the study is to find out the impact of Green Marketing Practices on the Customer satisfaction

The Secondary Objectives -To find out the significant correlation between green marketing practices and customer satisfaction are:

-To find out the significant mean difference in the customer satisfaction among personal demographic variables -To suggest the companies providing leather products to adopt the green marketing strategies to enhance the customer satisfaction Review of Literature time. The evolution of green marketing has three phases. First phase was termed as "Ecological" green marketing, and during this period all marketing activities were concerned to help environment problems and

The green marketing has evolved over period of provide remedies for environmental problems. Second phase was considered as the "Environmental" green Marketing and it focused on clean technology that involved designing of innovative new products, which take care of pollution and waste issues. Third Phase was "Sustainable" green marketing. It came into prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000. Green marketing involves developing and promoting products and services that satisfy customer want and need for quality, performance, Affordable price and convenience without having a detrimental input on environment Nandini and Deshpande, 2011;Peattle , 2001).

Customer loyalty referred to the behavior of customers to maintain a relation with an institute through purchase of its products and services (Sirdeshmukh, Singh & Sabol, 2002). Loyalty was a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product or service in the future (Oliver, 1999). In other words, loyalty can be viewed as the future behavior commitment to purchase a product or service, or the linkage with a firm on all occasions when other alternatives were possible. Generally Customer loyalty can be defined from a behavioral, attitudinal, or situational perspective (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001). Behavioral loyalty was articulated as the purchase and usage behavior displayed by customers in their historical purchasing and use of a brand and the competing brands. Attitudinal loyalty was normally reflected by an emotional bond with a brand and strong customer preferences for the brand. Situational loyalty depended on the shopping and purchasing situation. Although, all three types of loyalty have a role to play in marketing, most firms would prefer customer loyalty to be attitudinal ( Rakhsha and Majidazar (2011) evaluated the effect of green marketing mix on satisfaction and loyalty of the customers and consumers of the East Azarbaijan Pegah Dairy Company located in Tabriz, Iran. It was concluded that green marketing mix has significant effect on consumer satisfaction. It was also concluded that consumers' satisfaction has significant effect on their loyalty. By considering the effect of green marketing mix upon consumers' and customers' satisfaction and the effect of such satisfaction upon their loyalty, it can be assumed that companies can create competitive advantage in their organization through taking steps in making the green marketing as the part of their overall marketing strategy.

Yazdanifard & Mercy (2011) have approached" The impact of Green Marketing on Customer satisfaction and Environmental safety". Green revolution, going green, environmental protection, sustainable life style, sustainable development, protecting our earth and many more has become a natural phenomenon in our everyday life. As a result, this paper can be used by researchers who need to find out the impact of green marketing on customer satisfaction and environmental safety. Further, Chang & Fong (2010) have examined the relationship between Green product quality, green corporate image, green customer satisfaction, and green customer loyalty. The empirical results show that (1) green product quality is positively associated with green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty;

(2) green corporate image is positively associated with green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty; and (3) green customer satisfaction is positively associated with green customer loyalty. The results indicate that green product quality could bring about green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty. Additionally, green corporate image contributes to green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty. Prakash (2002) has followed the study green marketing, public policy and managerial strategies. Green marketing subsumes greening products as well as greening firms. In addition to manipulating the 4Ps (product, price, place and promotion) of the traditional marketing mix, it requires a careful understanding of public policy processes. The mentioned paper focuses primarily on promoting products by employing claims about their environmental attributes or about firms that manufacture and/or sell them. Secondarily, it focuses on product and pricing issues. Drawing on multiple literatures, it examines issues such as what needs to be greened (products, systems or processes), why consumers purchase/do not purchase green products and how firms should think about information disclosure strategies on environmental claims.

Studies on the green marketing have focused mainly on developed countries. At the same time, developing countries have not been focused perfectly. Therefore, studies carried out in developing countries are very important and may reach different conclusions from those carried out in developed countries (Mercy, 2011). Therefore, it is important, to empirically examine the actual impact of green marketing on customer satisfaction. Such understanding or finding will help to manufactures, educators, customers and policy makers to enhance the environmental safety products and hence reduce the customer dissatisfaction.

Based on the Literatures, the following conceptual model was constructed. This model of Green Marketing Practices introduces new constructs and uniquely combines them in specifying that the customer satisfaction is a function of green practices in product, price, promotion and place. In which, personal demographical factors were used as a moderating variables (Gender, Family income level, Age level and Destination)

Based on the above conceptual model, the following hypotheses have been developed. H1: There is a significant relationship between Green marketing practices and customer satisfaction.

H1a: There is a significant relationship between Green practices in product and customer satisfaction.

H1b: There is a significant relationship between Green practices in price and customer satisfaction.

H1c: There is a significant relationship between Green practices in promotion and customer satisfaction.

H1d: There is a significant relationship between Green practices in place and customer satisfaction. H2: There is a significant impact of Green marketing practices on customer satisfaction.

H2a: There is a significant impact of Green practices in product on customer satisfaction. H2b: There is a significant impact of Green practices in price on customer satisfaction. H2c: There is a significant impact of Green practices in promotion on customer satisfaction.

H2d: There is a significant impact of Green practices in place on customer satisfaction. H3: There is a significant mean difference in customer satisfaction among personal demographic variable. In this study, Customer Satisfaction is a function of the green issues in product, green issues in price, green issues in place, and green issues in promotion. The survey instrument in the form of closeended questionnaire was developed for the purpose of collecting the main data for the study. The study was limited to customers of leather products in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Therefore, judgmental sampling method was adopted to select respondents. And researchers have taken the details of the customers with the help of managers and retailers of the leather shops.

Researchers have issued one hundred and thirty (130) questionnaires for selecting the respondent. Out of one hundred and thirty (130) questionnaires, one hundred and twenty six (126) was returned; the response rate was 97%. Then, Out of one hundred and twenty six (126), one hundred and twenty two (122) was used for the study purpose.

Multiple Regression Analysis was used to find out the significant impact of green marketing practices on customer satisfaction.

Multiple correlation analysis was used to find out the significant relationship between green marketing practices and customer satisfaction.

F-test and t-test were used to find out the significant mean difference in the customer satisfaction among personal demographic variables VII. In the quantitative approach, various statistical methods were employed to compare the data collected from the respondents. These methods included (1) descriptive statistics, which involved in collecting, summarizing and presenting data. This analysis has given the information for the data through the frequency which involved in drawing conclusions about a population based only on sample data. It included multiple regression analysis, correlation analysis and ftest & t-test (Sivesan, & Achchuthan, 2013). respectively 34%, 25.4% & 29.5%. And also10.7 % of the customers is in the other place. In the income level, it can be seen that, the percentage of customers in the monthly income distribution, customers are mostly higher in the income level below 10000 as 52.5%. And also lower percentage is in the income level between Green Marketing Practices and Customer Satisfaction: A Special Reference to Leather Goods 30001 and 50000 as 3.3%. Further, in the age level, it can be seen that, the percentage of the customers in the Age level distribution, customers are mostly higher in the age level between 15 and 25 as 68.0%. And also lower percentage is in the age level above 40 as 9.8%.

The internal consistency of the research instrument should be tested by reliability analysis (Ndubisi, 2006). Nunnally (as cited in Ahsan et al., 2009) suggested that the minimum alpha of 0.6 sufficed for early stage of research. The cronbach's alpha in this study were all much higher than 0.6, the constructs were therefore deemed to have adequate reliability. According to the Table No 3, in each cell of the correlation matrix, the Pearson's correlation coefficient, p-value for two tailed test of significance and the sample size have been mentioned. , from the output. Correlation coefficient between Green marketing Practices and Customer satisfaction is 0.427 and the p-Green Marketing Practices and Customer Satisfaction: A Special Reference to Leather Goods value for two tailed test of significance is less than 0.01. From this table, researcher concludes that there is a significant relationship between Green marketing Practices and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, Green marketing issues in product, price, promotion & place have the significant relationship with customer satisfaction (Significant at 0.01 levels).

The purpose of regression analysis is to find out the significant impact or influence of independent variable on dependent variable (Ndubisi, 2006).In this study Green marketing practices is considered as independent variable or predictor variable, and the customer satisfaction is considered as dependent variable. the regression analysis, Significant P value is 0.000. It is less than the significant level 0.05. Therefore, we can conclude that 24 % of the impact is in the significant level. Further, From the Table 4.3, Coefficients table in the Regression analysis, Beta value between customer satisfaction and Green issues in promotion is 0.524. This is significant at 0.05 levels (P < 0.05). In contrast, the Beta value between Customer satisfaction and other predictor variables as Green issues in product, price & place is not in significant level (P > 0.05). Finally, In terms of the Multiple Regression analysis, we can come to the conclusion that the predictor power of the Green marketing practices is in the weakest level. The results of the regression analysis summarized in above tables show that Green marketing contributes significantly to customer satisfaction (F= 10.514; P < 0.01) and predicts 23.9 percent of the variation found. Green issue in promotion contributes significantly to customer satisfaction. And also customer satisfaction is not contributed significantly by Green issues in product, price & place .

In the Multi Collinearity Statistics, None of the tolerance level is < or equal to 1; and also VIF values are perfectly below 10. Thus the measures selected for assessing independent variable in this study do not reach levels indicate of multi-co linearity and also the acceptable Durbin Watson range is between 1.5 and 2.5 .In this analysis Durbin Watson value of 1.638, which is between the acceptable ranges, Show that there were no auto correlation problems in the data used in this research.