In order for marketing to play a role in sustainable economic development, a critical reassessment of marketing theory is required. Both the "societal marketing" of the 1970s and contemporary "green marketing" are efforts to improve the relationship between marketing and the natural environment. Taken alone, however, either approach provides but a partial analysis of the problems that are involved. Starting from the assumptions and limitations of economic and cognitive approaches to marketing and from the dilemmas between micro-marketing objectives and macromarketing goals, marketing is shown to have an inherent drive toward unsustainability. Sustainable marketing requires finding optimal regulatory frameworks for governing the role of marketing within a confined ecological space.