The article presents the significant, though not universally acknowledged, role of marketing in generating imbalance in the developmental processes of modern economy and society. As the foundation of such analysis, the authors adopted the category of values, which constitutes on the one hand ethical reflection accompanying human activities connected with sustainable development, and on the other explains the nature of market behaviour of the modern consumer. In the search for the mechanism disturbing sustainable development, the authors pointed to the phenomenon of degradation of household as the most important component of the socio-economic system. Such degradation occurs under pressure from the market powered by innovation, the enterprise exposed to fierce competition and the state which supports in its policy the concentration of capital and unbalanced consumption. It has been proved that the processes which shorten the market life cycle of goods and reduce the contemporary human, market participant, to the role of an unreflective consumer, are in conflict with the principles of sustainable development. Modern marketing can be oriented to the realization of the principles of sustainable development, introducing the paradigm of ecologisation into the theory and practice of marketing activity with reference to the model of managing a modern enterprise as well as to the process of revision in consumers' consciousness and attitudes, gradually turning them into eco-consumers.
