The Evolution of Consumer Movement: From Value for Money to Value for People

For decades, the consumer movement in India asked one central question: are buyers getting their money’s worth? The focus was squarely on price, quality, and protection from adulteration or fraud. But something fundamental has changed. Today, the movement asks a much bigger question – what kind of world does our buying create? This shift, from value for money to value for people, marks one of the most significant transformations in consumer thought, and understanding it is essential for anyone studying consumer protection law.

Where it all started: the “value for money” era
The turning point: from transaction to transformation
Green consumerism: what it means and why it matters
Challenges facing the expanding consumer movement
The affordability problem
Greenwashing: the integrity threat
Access to information and rural exclusion
Possibilities and the path forward

Where it all started: the “value for money” era

The roots of consumer activism in India run surprisingly deep. References in Kautilya’s Arthashastra address consumer protection against short-weighment and adulteration – problems that sound remarkably contemporary. In the colonial period, Gandhi’s protests against the taxation of basic goods, including the famous Salt March and the Khadi movement, tied consumer choices directly to political power. These were early, powerful statements that what people buy matters beyond the transaction itself.

The modern phase of India’s consumer movement, however, took shape in the 1960s through the efforts of organizations like the Consumer Guidance Society of India (CGSI), founded in 1966 by nine women in Mumbai after a toxic adulteration scandal. The movement during this era was defined by a straightforward agenda: tackle false shortages, black marketing, food adulteration, and misleading advertisements. The question that drove every campaign was simple – is the consumer getting what they paid for?

The enactment of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 formalized this era. It defined “consumer” for the first time in Indian law, established consumer courts at the district, state, and national levels, and gave legal teeth to the demand for fair treatment. The goal was, broadly, economic justice in the marketplace – ensuring that sellers could not exploit buyers with impunity.

The turning point: from transaction to transformation

By the late 1980s and through the 1990s, a broader global consciousness began reshaping consumer thinking. The end of the Cold War, expanding globalization, and a growing awareness of environmental crises pushed consumer organizations to look beyond the immediate purchase. Consumer citizenship in India gained momentum following the economic reforms of 1991, as liberalization opened up markets but also exposed consumers to new forms of exploitation – including environmental harm and labor abuses embedded in global supply chains.

The shift was captured powerfully by Anwar Fazal, then Regional Director of the United Nations Development Programme for the Asia Pacific Region, who argued that the consumer movement should be directed towards service to the people and the environment, not merely ensuring value for money. This statement encapsulated the transition: the movement was no longer just about protecting individual buyers from bad deals, but about linking individual consumption to collective outcomes – health, ecology, equity, and human dignity.

The concerns that entered the consumer movement’s agenda during this phase included access to basic needs for all segments of society, ecological sustainability and resource conservation, fair labor practices in production, and the rights of communities displaced by industrial development. The movement recognized that every purchase is also a vote – a signal sent to producers about what practices consumers will support or reject.

Green consumerism: what it means and why it matters

The most visible outcome of this broadened vision is green consumerism – a philosophy where purchasing decisions are guided by environmental consciousness, ethical considerations, and social equity, not just price and quality. Green products are broadly defined as those with minimal environmental impact, and consumer preference for them has been growing steadily in India, particularly among urban and educated demographics.

Green consumerism operates through several interconnected principles. Environmental consciousness means evaluating products based on their ecological footprint – from raw material extraction to disposal. Ethical sourcing means asking whether the workers who made a product were paid fairly and worked in safe conditions. Social equity means recognizing that some consumption patterns perpetuate inequality, while responsible choices can help dismantle it. Together, these principles reflect what scholars call consumer citizenship – the idea that sustainable consumption requires not just green product choices but active participation in shaping the conditions of production and distribution.

In India, this shift is quantifiable. Two in three urban Indian consumers now prioritize environmentally responsible actions by businesses, and one in three actively seeks natural products – driven by both health consciousness and eco-awareness. India’s organic food market is projected to reach USD 762 million by 2025, reflecting how green preferences are translating into real purchasing behavior. On the mobility front, Indian consumers show a stronger-than-global preference for electric and hybrid vehicles, suggesting that sustainability concerns are influencing even major purchase decisions.

Challenges facing the expanding consumer movement

The affordability problem

One of the sharpest tensions in green consumerism is economic. Sustainable and ethically produced goods frequently carry price premiums that make them inaccessible to lower-income consumers. Research shows that 88% of Indian consumers feel the lack of affordable eco-friendly alternatives prevents them from being more environmentally conscious. In a country with significant income disparities, placing the burden of sustainability entirely on individual purchasing choices risks creating a two-tier system – where ethical consumption becomes a privilege of the affluent, not a universal norm. The consumer movement must therefore push for systemic changes that make sustainable options viable across all income levels, not just market them to those who can afford to pay more.

Greenwashing: the integrity threat

As demand for green products grows, so does the temptation for companies to exploit that demand with misleading claims. Greenwashing – where businesses make false or exaggerated environmental claims – has become a serious challenge to the movement’s credibility. In India, companies commonly use vague terms like “eco-friendly,” “natural,” or “sustainable” without providing verifiable evidence, exploiting the aspirations of environmentally aware consumers. A notable early case involved Hindustan Unilever facing legal action for falsely advertising a detergent as “100% natural.”

India has begun addressing this. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) released draft guidelines against greenwashing in 2024, and the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) introduced guidelines effective February 2024 requiring advertisers to provide credible scientific evidence for all environmental claims. Terms like “compostable,” “carbon-neutral,” or “net-zero” must now be backed by certified, verifiable data. Penalties for violations fall under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. These are important steps, but enforcement gaps remain, and consumer awareness about how to identify greenwashing is still limited.

Access to information and rural exclusion

The green consumer movement has largely been an urban, educated phenomenon. Rural consumers – who constitute a significant portion of India’s population – often remain outside its scope, lacking both access to alternative products and awareness of their environmental implications. Critics have long noted that India’s consumer movement risks being elitist if it does not actively incorporate rural and marginalized consumers. The challenge of consumer education is compounded by the complexity of global supply chains, where information about labor practices, carbon footprints, and ingredient sourcing is often unavailable or technically difficult to interpret.

Possibilities and the path forward

Despite these challenges, the expanding consumer movement opens up several promising directions for action. The alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production – gives the movement international legitimacy and creates common ground for global advocacy. SDG 12 recognizes that while a large share of the world population still lacks access to basic needs, prevailing consumption patterns in rapidly developing regions are environmentally unsustainable. Bridging this contradiction is at the heart of the modern consumer movement’s mission.

Technology is also expanding the movement’s reach. Digital platforms, barcode-scanning sustainability apps, and e-commerce labeling programs like Amazon’s “Climate Pledge Friendly” certification are making it easier for consumers to identify genuinely green products and avoid greenwashed ones. In India, where smartphone penetration is high even among populations with limited access to other resources, these tools have particular transformative potential.

Most importantly, the movement is increasingly recognizing that individual choices alone cannot transform systems. Consumer organizations are partnering with environmental advocacy groups, human rights organizations, and policy bodies to push for structural change – extended producer responsibility laws, stricter eco-labeling standards, circular economy incentives, and regulations against planned obsolescence. Indian consumers often exhibit a “value-conscious” orientation, where traditional practices of frugality, reuse, and resourcefulness naturally align with sustainability – even when they are not framed in formal environmental terms. Harnessing this cultural foundation, rather than importing external frameworks, may be the movement’s most powerful asset.

The evolution from “value for money” to “value for people” is not simply a rhetorical shift – it represents a fundamentally different understanding of what consumption is for. It is no longer just about protecting buyers from bad products. It is about ensuring that the act of buying supports a world where basic needs are met, ecosystems are protected, and no one’s rights are compromised in the making of a product. That is a far more ambitious agenda, and one that requires consumers, businesses, civil society, and governments to act together.

What do you think? If sustainable products remain significantly more expensive than conventional alternatives, is it fair to expect individual consumers – rather than corporations or governments – to bear the primary responsibility for driving green change? And given India’s deep tradition of frugality and resource reuse, could these existing cultural practices serve as a stronger foundation for a genuinely inclusive green consumer movement than imported ideas of ethical consumption?

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Table of Contents

Where it all started: the “value for money” era 🔗

The turning point: from transaction to transformation 🔗

Green consumerism: what it means and why it matters 🔗

Challenges facing the expanding consumer movement 🔗

The affordability problem 🔗

Greenwashing: the integrity threat 🔗

Access to information and rural exclusion 🔗

Possibilities and the path forward 🔗