Green consumption

Green consumption is related to sustainable development or sustainable consumer behaviour. It is a form of consumption that safeguards the environment for the present and for future generations. It ascribes to consumers responsibility or co-responsibility for addressing environmental problems through the adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors, such as the use of organic products, clean and renewable energy, and the choice of goods produced by companies with zero, or almost zero, impact (zero waste, zero-emissions vehicle, zero-energy building, etc.).

In Western societies, green consumption emerged during the 1960s and the early 1970s, with the increased awareness of the necessity to protect the environment and people's health from the effects caused by industrial pollutants and by economic and population growth. In the 1980s, the first American green brands began to appear and exploded on the American market. During the 1990s, green products grew slowly, remaining a niche phenomenon. American interest in green products started to increase again in the early 2000s and have continued to grow.

Origin and development

After the oil crisis of 1973, people in western countries began to consider the use of green energy as an alternative to fossil fuels. Now green consumption is considered a basic point of environmental reform and it is also guaranteed by supra-national organizations like the European Union. Some sociologists argue that increasing globalization led people to feel more interconnected with others and the environment, which led to an increasing awareness of global environmental problems, especially in western countries.