Major Essay Ethical Consumption in the Digital Era PDF

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SUSTAINABLE & ETHICAL CONSUMPTION AND THE DIGITAL ERA by Vedant Grover (45160007) Consumer behaviour is articulated as the conduct displayed by individuals, groups and organisations in searching for, obtaining and utilising products and services that will satisfy their needs. Internal factors affecting purchasing decisions are derived from consumers’ lifestyles or manner of thought, and include personal and psychological needs and motivations. Whereas external influences are the result of factors beyond the control of consumers such as the impact of cultural understandings and social dynamics. In today’s technologically developing world there is an increasing need to analyses the relationship between consumers’ and their decisions in order to apprehend the importance of sustainable and ethical consumption. Hyper-consumption (or overconsumption) is a serious economic issue that threatens the ecosystem in which we live as the rate at which we use our resources outpace its sustainable capacity. Over the long-term, an unethical and unsustainable pattern of consuming will lead to major environmental consequences such as resource depletion and conservational degradation as well as reduced health of the ecosystem. However on the contrary, consumerism also promotes economic growth. In order to prevent these global issues and ensure the sustainability of future generations, we must sustain consumerism to the point where the need for goods doesn’t outweigh the capacity to produce within the digital era. Internal factors that affect consumers decisions often involve a more complex purchasing process where consumers make a decision based on their own personality and psychology. Personal needs and motivations include the income, age, education and lifestyle of how customers feels about making a purchasing decision. The personality of individuals’ can be understood as their ‘self-concept’ constructed naturally based what sensory experiences they have had. Based on their personality, customers effectively develop perceptions that in turn act as motivations to buy or not to buy something. Additionally, beliefs and attitudes are also psychological factors that will also shape consumer motivations as this affects what consumers see as true or false. For instance an individual may repel a marketing campaign based on their ideologies that it is misleading or not telling the truth about its products (Hawkins, 2019). Internal factors of personal and psychological needs and motivations can often be the cause of consumers making decisions to purchase without ethical or sustainable considerations, as consumers are purchasing based on their own understandings in this case without giving thought to external consequences. Consequently this can be one of the driving factors that leads to consumption issues. An individual, group or organisation that has a greater purchasing power for instance will likely be susceptible to overconsume without realising the unethical implications on their decisions. This is due to the greater availability of funds they have and an internal need to employ their financial resources as much as possible. On the contrary, external factors are not individualistic and relate to the groups consumers’ interact with and the associations they have. External influences affecting consumer behaviour include culture, social class and reference groups. Culture most commonly refers to the nationality and religion individuals or groups consider themselves to be a part of, that influences what they see as acceptable, the habits they form and the language in which they communicate (Jacobsen, 2016).

Culturally, some nationalities believe it’s a taboo for instance to consume certain foods for such as Hindu’s who do not consume beef due to their religious views (Mandel and Pham, 2019). And in many Asian countries as another example owning a house is seen as the most important indicator of wealth and security, so consumption behaviours would be driven towards achieving that goal (Al-Hyari, Alnsour, Al-Weshah and Haffar, 2013). Social class is based on the division of society into a hierarchy that is determines customers’ behaviours based on the lifestyle patterns and interest of consumers. Markets will attempt to target a social class based on analysing the dynamics of differing customer patterns and other composite variables such as different types of profession (Lee and Cho, 2016). Customers often make observations themselves from reference groups such as colleagues, school peers, and neighbourhoods. This can also influence what they inturn perceive to be acceptable or ‘the norm’ as their views are based on the credibility of a social standing. The greater call to action by vegan groups or environmentalists for instance affect consumers’ decision to eat meat or use plastics respectively, as they are more influenced by external factors that help the understand the sustainable and ethical consequences of their consumption on the ecosystem. Hyper-consumption has both positive and negative consequences, though the costs of consuming outweigh the arguments in favour of consumption. Even though this is the case however, high levels of consumption is important to stimulate economic growth (Passini, 2013). Customer behaviour that results a pattern of increased level of spending will increase aggregate demand and has the potential to result in a boom in the economic goods and service industry. Economies rely on consumption to increase their capacity to produce and ultimately, boost innovation, reduce production costs though the achievement of economies of scale, create jobs, encourage entrepreneurialism and provide choice to individuals, groups and organisations. This benefits communities through higher levels of wages, more food, home and job security ultimately optimising the quality of life and standard of living of those who are effectively able to take advantage of economic growth within an economy. Everything we consume such as clothes, food, fuel and even services like hair-cuts and medical check-ups has economic and environmental consequences. Consumerism takes presentence over the environment which is a major issue caused by consuming. This can lead to overconsumption where resources in the digital era are not used in limitation to allow the sustainability of future generations, as our current need for consuming outweigh our capacity to produce it over the longterm. Everything consumed in the world is extracted from a natural resource, whether is mined, fished, farmed or cut down. High levels of consumption is resulting in the environmental depletion of resources, where forests, minerals, water sources, fish and other natural properties we rely on are being exploited and consequently becoming scarce. Furthermore, increased levels of consumption behaviour also leads to the degradation of the ecosystems health. This is the result of high levels of pollution and waste that is affecting the quality of air, water and land in which surrounds us. Scientists have researched to find that over 12 million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean every year as an example. Accelerated climate change, deforestation, ocean pollution are the fault of consumerism and are problems leading to an unsustainable future.

Overconsumption also creates economic issues as consumer behaviour results in encouraging higher levels economic debt, and promoting inequality. In the shortterms consumers are more willing to take loans and acquire credit card debt in order to sustain their habit of frequently purchasing for new products, holidays or events. In the United States for example consumers spent an average of over $1000 per person on Black Friday, comparably higher than in 2005 where the average spent per person was only $734. (*) The gap between the rich and the poor is widening yearly in economies all over the globe as a result of consumption. A solution to overconsumption is for individuals, companies and organisations within economies to promote sustainable consumption patterns where shoppers are driven to choose the economically environmentally appropriate option. By enforcing the importance of recycling or avoiding purchasing plastics that take years to deteriorate, this can be done effectively. As a result consumers will have greater consideration for their environmental footprint and may decide to do the small things that make a big impact. This includes using a reusable coffee cup, composting, using paper straws, switching to a form of transport that has lower carbon emission, taking shorter showers, reusing shopping bags, repurposing clothes, purchasing second hand goods or even adopting a minimalist approach to shopping. Earth Hour for example is an organisation advertised as a global movement for the environment who enforce the consumption of less electricity in order to urge stronger action on climate change and other environmental problems (Earth Hour, 2019). Ultimately, internal and external factors of personality, psychology, cultural and social understanding affect consumer behaviour to determine what, when, where and how often consumers purchase goods and services. It is important for individuals, groups and organisations to promote sustainable and ethical consumer behaviour patterns in order to avoid the detrimental consequences hyper-consumption can have. To prevent major economic and environmental issues, we must consume at a rate in the digital era where our current need for goods doesn’t outweigh our capacity to produce but rather considers the sustainability of future generations.

References

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