Media Practices for Cultivating Responsible Consumption and Production

Abstract

The study involves a comprehensive mixed research approach to investigate the significance of factors of effective media practices in the context of Responsible Consumption and production, as defined by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The study is based on the rising concern of climate change the and eventual projection of mass starvation as an outcome of the overconsumption of natural resources. The problem of overconsumption is not seen alone but is always associated with the problem of overproduction too. The United Nations set the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the year 2015 after the amendment in the Millennium Development Goals set earlier to address the grave issues of environmental crises and social disparities arising out of them. SDG 12, Responsible Consumption and Production is designed to ensure optimal use of natural resources by consumers and producers so that there is no crisis of resources for future generations to come by, while the current population of humans live a sustainable life for their better health, ecosystem and social development. In 2015, the UN recognised the need to have a robust communication system to spread the goals of sustainability at a much wider scale to involve the nations, corporates and people at large by way of the Common Alliance. To achieve the SDGs by 2030, the need to rope in media and communication was seen as the biggest catalyst. A lot of work has been happening in this area, and many scholarships have been written based on what is happening on this front. The West has already been proactively setting and achieving the yardsticks to measure SDGs. The researcher has tried to look at the status of Responsible Consumption and Production in the Indian context. As a marketing communication professional, the researcher chose the area of consumer insight and the use of media practices as the base for the study of the subject.