Environmentally Sustainable Consumption : A Review and Agenda for Future Research

Abstract

The term ‘Sustainable development’ entered the development discourse in early 1970s and it was legitimized following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which was held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil in 1972. The underlying idea which laid the foundation for defining what sustainability means arose at United Nations Conference on Human environment, Sweden, in 1992. Sustainability refers to economic, social and environmental dimension. Environmental sustainability is about making responsible decisions that will reduce negative impact on the natural environment. Researchers have become increasingly interested in understanding environmentally sustainable consumption of customers and this topic is being studied in many countries. This paper will provide an exhaustive review of the literature available on environmental sustainable consumption. First section of the paper describes and highlights the historical development of sustainability and in the second section of the study leading journals are considered and a review of literature is presented. It is thus an attempt to provide a future research direction of sustainable consumption in marketing