Published Paper Details:

This paper examines the practices of unsustainable consumption in India and its impact on the environment, across several sectors. Increased population coupled with increasing incomes and improving standards of living has led to an increase in waste generation from packaging, greenhouse emissions, wastewater etc. Additionally, increased consumption by human beings leads to resource depletion and pollution in the environment. In order to combat this, a shift is required sustainable consumption faces, which however, faces several challenges such as rigid lifestyles and personal habits, higher cost and low accessibility of sustainable products and services, weak policy enforcement as well as 'greenwashing' by producer firms. In order to address these issues, many measures have been suggested such as awareness campaigns, promotion of sustainable choices, improved infrastructure for provision of sustainable solutions, stricter policy enforcement as well as government initiatives. It concludes that promoting sustainable consumption is a shared responsibility that could be achieved by combining efforts for individual awareness, appropriate industrial ecosystem and conducive policy action.