Sustainable development stands on three core elements: environment, economy, and social equity. The environment is under constant pressure from a long list of hazards. Even though there have been various innovations and developments of new practices to reduce the pressure and tackle the negative externalities, there still seems to be a long way to go. This chapter lays its entire focus on the sustainable consumption and production patterns of the food industry in the developing countries, while paying special attention to India and the impacts it has on the human habitat. The current state of the environment calls for the innovation of methods which lead to an efficient future. To understand more of this, a study was run on the people of Delhi, NCR so as to understand their current degree of awareness about sustainability, their consumption behaviours, and the importance laid on sustainability. The impact of factors like price, nutrition, taste, availability, convenience, sustainability, brand reputation, and packaging were also highlighted.
TopIntroduction
The Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs” in the year 1987. As a concept, sustainability is gaining a lot of importance as the world is increasingly threatened by issues such as climate change, global warming, resource depletion, hunger, poverty, and other social inequalities. Under the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development, the United Nations laid down seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which try to tackle the complications of poverty, hunger, inequality, education, etc while trying to establish responsible consumption and production and spreading peace, justice, and strong institutions. Brought to force on Jan 1, 2016, these seventeen goals have been adopted by all 193 UN Member Nations (Dpicampaigns, 2020).
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the demands of humans have grown ten times (European Commission, 2018), leading to a rise that is faster than nature’s capacity to produce, let alone replenish its resources. Every year we observe Earth Overshoot Day in July which marks the date when humanity has exhausted the earth’s budget for the year. This basically suggests that the natural resources only last us till the month of July. The coming of the pandemic momentarily reduced the ecological footprint, however, the struggle against long-term unsustainability, remains a perpetual issue.
Reports suggest that the global food industry is responsible for about 21% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and total GHG emissions of about 42% (Langen et al., 2022). This, therefore, makes it important to push this industry towards sustainability.
Consumer preferences and behaviours are affected by a lot of factors. While consumers believe that their choices are based on individual likes, they tend to overlook the susceptibility of these choices by external and environmental stimuli. Producers hold the power to nudge consumers towards a more sustainable livelihood, aided by eating better. This works at both, the demand and supply, sides. Organisations involved in digitally dealing with their consumers hold an abundance of consumer data. This is what is termed as a behavioural surplus. This behavioural surplus can be used to shape and structure consumer behaviour, to generate what is known as a societal surplus (Zuboff, 2018). Zuboff goes ahead to explain that a societal surplus is “the sum of the benefits that accrue to society by advancing economic vitality; environmental sustainability; lifetime well-being; access, equity, and inclusion; ethical capacity; and social progress.” This suggests that societal surplus is generative and so, benefits everyone. Using the behavioural surplus to nudge consumers towards sustainable consumption practices is a very important step in this road towards attaining sustainability. An example of a company nudge could be a food delivery application that has the ability to promote restaurants on the basis of their sustainability rating. Every small or big marketing action, too, is a nudge towards changing consumer behaviour (DaSilva et al., 2023).
Researches have mentioned the need for a sustainable consumption and production system (SCP), which creates a sustainable balance between consumers and producers. While it influences the producers to try and bring out a greater variety of green products and wider consumption options, it also mentions that this rise in price should drive down prices, making green products more affordable. Thus, creating a closed system (Staniškis, 2011).