Understanding consumers’ perceptions of sustainable products in India

Abstract

Understanding consumer perception of sustainable products is critical for product designers and sustainability enablers; for instance, policy developers can develop successful policies only through detailed understanding of consumers’ attitude. Additionally, future sales of products can be predicted by understanding consumer’s willingness of purchase and sustainable related policies. In this study, through an all encompassing, non-anonymous online survey, we tried to estimate the perceptual experience of sustainable products in the mind of consumers and predict its implications on their future purchasing patterns. The results show that most of the consumers are aware and interested in sustainable products, but majority of them are not practicing sustainable living. Majority of consumers are willing to spend extra for sustainable products, but we need to see whether they do it in practice or not. This work is a start in the direction of understanding consumer’s perception towards sustainable products and develop support to help manufacturers; however, the results indicate that a detailed, and broader study is needed to gain insight into the diversified population perception and behavior towards sustainable products and develop design support.