Promoting Sustainable Consumption

Consumption patterns could play a central role in promoting sustain-ability. Sustainable consumption is an umbrella that brings together a number of key issues, such as meeting society’s needs, enhancing quality of life, improving product efficiency, minimizing waste, and taking a life cycle perspective, while taking into account the equity dimensions. Discussions on sustainable consumption are focused on the important role of businesses, particularly corporate strategies in developing sustainable consumption and production patterns. The terms, logistics, and factors impacting sustainable consumption are presented and the need for development of frameworks and policies that can enhance consumers’ knowledge and behavior are discussed in this chapter. The emphasis has been placed on the role of government, education, and corporate strategies to promote sustainable consumption in support of sustainable development.