Are You a Responsible Consumer

Are You a Responsible Consumer?

By Dripto Mukhopadhyay

Do we consider ourselves as “responsible or aware consumer”? If I think of myself, the answer is, perhaps, “No”. Before delving into this further, I should clarify my perspective of a responsible or aware consumer. I consider someone who consumes “sustainably” keeping in mind the environmental and social impacts of the production process of the products to purchase/consume. To make it simpler for everyone, environmental impacts are measured by amount of carbon emission during the production process directly or indirectly. And, the social impacts are measured by the income generated by the labour force involved in the entire supply chain of the production process as well as their wellbeing. It is reflected through earnings, health, education and also social wellbeing of the manpower who are producing these products at various levels.

The context of bringing this topic suddenly was my casual chitchat regarding this with a few known persons. We were discussing perspective of common people like us and their consumption behaviour. As a part of normal flow in discussion, known people living in European Union (EU) countries also came up. Of course, specific characteristics of these EU people are that they are mostly academically oriented and engaged in academic work. Therefore, it is unclear whether this segment is an outlier to general EU population or represent them within certain psychographic framework. It was a general conversation about life and preferences. Amongst many things, what triggered my thought was their awareness and concern about overall sustainability and also acting accordingly.

It emerges during our conversation that they normally prefer to purchase products that are socially and environmentally sustainable. A strong preference is prevalent to avoid purchasing products of the brands that they know for not following a sustainable production process. They try to figure out from multiple sources whether certain brands, especially MNCs, do follow the norms that promote sustainability, both socially and environmentally. Labour exploitation, especially in production process in the third world countries, as well as much higher carbon footprint than expected, are quite common in the production process of these companies. What is unique in their consumer behaviour is to develop an unstructured, yet effective protest against these practices, through boycotting these brands as an individual. Instead, they prefer to purchase local produces, more often directly from the producers that are more organic in nature and also follow superior sustainability norms as part of their production process. While doing so, the price they pay is relatively higher than similar products marketed by companies they avoid. When this spreads within their social network, it has a much larger implications as the impact grows exponentially since individuals coming together, just by the course of their actions, form a population segment which impacts purchasing pattern significantly.

Recent experiences of my close family members in one of the African countries suggested that the people involved in production process in the respective economy are extremely poorly paid and as a consequence poverty coupled with subservience are perhaps the most visible traits amongst the common people. I am sure several of us do experience the same in places that we visit or even close to our homes. The living conditions of the construction labourers are one of the striking examples we experience in regular basis. However, I and, perhaps, many of you, have got used to observing these regularly and it does not even bother us at all as something unexpected and unwarranted. My experiences as well as the conversation as mentioned above made it clear to me that whatever I am at present, certainly is not a responsible or aware consumer. I do not bother to know whether the labourers producing the clothing that I wear, eat or purchase for other purposes, are paid an amount which is bare minimum to live a decent human living. I do not know whether children of these labourers are able to pay school fees or have access to basic health facilities and nutrition.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are introduced by UN are being pursued by every country since 2000. These are extremely important component in our development process and also being monitored closely to measure the progress. The following Table provides a snapshot of top 10 achieving countries with their score. Notably, all top countries are from EU region. However, the detailed report showed that though these countries are ahead of others in terms of SDG, but are far from achieving in terms of “responsible consumption and production”. India is way behind in achieving SDG targets at present. A long way to go.

Table 1: SDG Score and Rank of Top 10 Countries and India

Source: SGD Report 2024

Purpose of this article is not to look into countries’ progress regarding SDG. I found a strong correlation between how common people think of their consumption of goods and services with policy issues of their governments. In recent trade policy related directives by EU sustainability is one of the highlights. And, it seems that EU trade scenarios with other countries will be significantly impacted because of these policy directives. The social aspects of EU trade policies majorly focus on promoting human rights, decent labour standards, and sustainable development within trade agreements to restrict countries lowering their social standards to attract business. Instead, it pushes and encourages responsible production practices by companies through measures like corporate social responsibility (CSR) provisions and enforcement mechanisms against forced labour and child labour. Key points about the social dimension of EU trade policies:

• Promoting human rights
• Labor standards
• Combating child labour and forced labour
• Sustainable development focus
• Capacity building and dialogue
• Trade sanctions as a tool
• Due diligence requirements
• Environmental and social impact assessments
• Labor clauses in trade agreements
• Supporting fair trade practices

Of course, it is debatable whether changing the entire system that quickly is feasible for all trade partners of EU. Perhaps it would require some measures of balancing economic interests with social concerns. Apparently, sentiments of common people have been reflected in trade their policies. But, the discussions as I mentioned at the beginning and also the close linkage that I see between how common people think about consumption, pose a question to me about my status an aware consumer. I clearly felt that I am not an aware consumer since I do not at all think about whether the production chain is at all sustainable. I look for branded products, perhaps being happy to be status conscious, without pondering about the wellbeing of my fellow countrymen or people from other countries who are engaged in the production process. Perhaps, it is high time that I change my consumption behaviour towards more “responsible consumption” that leads to sustainable development. Just want to leave a thought for you all as well.