Abstract
Customers in India are getting more concerned with the concept of sustainability, especially millennials who have been identified as the most active, informed, and sensitive generation in terms of purchasing behaviour and consumer decisions. The reality is that India has the world’s largest millennial population which provides the basis for this chapter’s focus. The study explores the motivations behind millennials’ interest in sustainable items. It is believed that these millennials have enormous spending power; they have a great desire for working in environmentally pleasant workplaces and have a significant inclination to purchase eco-friendly items. But the reasons why millennials buy sustainable products have not been thoroughly studied. Many countries, including India, face difficulties in shifting consumer behaviour towards more ecologically responsible purchase. Nowadays, consumers have gotten more knowledgeable about the items they buy and how they are created. The purpose of this chapter is to learn how Indian patrons feel about sustainable fashion, their attitudes, motivations and behaviour towards sustainable fashion. Furthermore, a comprehensive framework for understanding and promoting long-term shifts in consumer behaviour is developed. Since providing a guideline for moral consumption and manufacturing is critical, the fundamental aim of this research is to acquire a thorough knowledge of the modifications that sustainable fashion suggests. This has been achieved by considering two case studies, examining the sustainable strategies and behaviour of H&M, a Swedish multinational fashion house, and of Stella McCartney, a Milan-based luxury designer, focussing on publicly accessible data. Both case studies discuss the sustainable initiatives and measures that urge client purchasing attitudes to modify their purchasing decisions in favour of the expansion of sustainable fashion.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
10 Hot Stories, no-7. (2018). Is high street sustainability an oxymoron, Grazia. TOI, 10(12), 54–54.
Annual, H. M. (2018). H&M group annual report 2017 [Online].
Auger, P., & Devinney, T. M. (2007). Do what consumers say matter? The misalignment of preferences with unconstrained ethical intentions. Journal of Business Ethics, 76(4), 361–383.
Brundtland, G. H., & Khalid, M. (1987). Our common future: report of the world commission on environment and development.
Choi, T. M., & Cheng, T. E. (2015). Sustainable fashion supply chain management. Springer.
Ekström, K. M., Hjelmgren, D., & Salomonson, N. (2015). Environmental consumer socialization among generation swing and Y: A study of clothing consumption. In K. M. Ekström (Ed.), Waste management and sustainable consumption: Reflections on consumer waste. Routledge.
Gatersleben, B., Steg, L., & Vlek, C. (2002). Measurement and determinants of environmentally significant consumer behavior. Environment and Behavior, 34(3), 335–362.
Gershoff, A. D., & Frels, J. K. (2014). What makes it green? The role of centrality of green attributes in evaluations of the greenness of products. Journal of Marketing, 79(1), 97–110.
Gill, A., Lopes, A. M., & Kaye-Smith, H. (2016). Practicing sustainability: Illuminating ‘use’ in wearing clothes. Cultural Studies Review, 22(1), 32–58.
Green Purchasing Network of India. (2014). Communicating green products to consumers in India to promote sustainable consumption and production.
H&M Group Sustainability. (2018). H&M group sustainability report 2017 [Online].
H&M History. (2018). H&M history [Online].
Henninger, C. E. (2015). Traceability the new eco-label in the slow-fashion industry? — Consumer perceptions and micro-organisations responses. Sustainability, 7(5), 6011–6032.
IUCN. (2018). IUCN [Online].
Johnstone, M.-L., & Tan, L. (2015). Exploring the gap between consumers’ green rhetoric and purchasing behaviour. Journal of Business Ethics, 132(2), 311–328.
Khurana, K., & Ricchetti, M. (2016). Two decades of sustainable supply chain management in the fashion business, an appraisal. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 20(1), 89–104.
Kollmuss, A., & Agyeman, J. (2002). Mind the gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior? Environmental Education Research, 8(3), 239–260.
Lang, C., & Armstrong, C. M. J. (2018). Collaborative consumption: The influence of fashion leadership, need for uniqueness, and materialism on female consumers’ adoption of clothing renting and swapping. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 13, 37–47.
Lin, Y.-C., & Chang, C.-c. A. (2012). Double standard: The role of environmental consciousness in green product usage. Journal of Marketing, 76(5), 125–134.
Luchs, M. G., Brower, J., & Chitturi, R. (2012). Product choice and the importance of aesthetic design given the emotion-laden trade-off between sustainability and functional performance. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(6), 903–916.
Lundblad, L., & Davies, I. (2016). The values and motivations behind sustainable fashion consumption. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 15(2), 149–162.
Mahajan, S. (2012). Sustainability of green fashion. In International conference: Textiles and fashion 2012 (pp. 1–11).
McNeill, L., & Moore, R. (2015). Sustainable fashion consumption and the fast fashion conundrum: Fashionable consumers and attitudes to sustainability in clothing choice. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 39(3), 212–222.
Norman, W., & MacDonald, C. (2004). Getting to the bottom of ‘triple bottom line’. Business Ethics Quarterly, 14(2), 243–262.
Pal, R. (2016). Sustainable value generation through post-retail initiatives: An exploratory study of slow and fast fashion businesses. In Green fashion (pp. 127–158). Springer.
Park, H., & Kim, Y. (2016). An empirical test of the triple bottom line of customer-centric sustainability: The case of fast fashion. Fashion and Textiles, 3(1), 1–18.
Pereira, J. C. (2015). Environmental issues and international relations, a new global (dis)order – The role of international relations in promoting a concerted international system. Revista Brasileira de Politíca Internacional, 58(1), 191.
Pickett-Baker, J., & Ozaki, R. (2008). Pro-environmental products: Marketing influence on consumer purchase decision. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 25(5), 281–293.
Prothero, A., Dobscha, S., Freund, J., Kilbourne, W. E., Luchs, M. G., Ozanne, L. K., et al. (2011). Sustainable consumption: Opportunities for consumer research and public policy. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 30(1), 31–38.
Strähle, J. (2017). Green fashion retail. In Green fashion retail (pp. 1–6). Springer.
Sustainability Timeline. https://www.stellamccartney.com/us/en/sustainability/sustainability.html
Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC). (2017). [Online].
Trudel, R., & Cotte, J. (2009). Does it pay to be good? MITS loan Management Review, 50(2), 61.
Vlachos, I. P., & Malindretos, G. (2015). Business markets and sustainability: The way forward. In Markets, business and sustainability (pp. 221–227). Bentham Science Publishers.
Wei, C. F., Chiang, C. T., Kou, T. C., & Lee, B. C. (2017). Toward sustainable livelihoods: Investigating the drivers of purchase behaviour for green products. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26(5), 626–639.
White, K., Simpson, B., & Argo, J. J. (2014). The motivating role of dissociative out-groups in encouraging positive consumer behaviors. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(4), 433–447.
Young, W., Hwang, K., McDonald, S., & Oates, C. J. (2010). Sustainable consumption: Green consumer behaviour when purchasing products. Sustainable Development, 18(1), 20–31.
Zhao, H., Gao, Q., Wu, Y., Wang, Y., & Zhu, X. (2014). What affects green consumer behaviour in China? A case study from Qingdao. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63(1), 143–151.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Arora, N., Gupta, M., Dharwal, M. (2023). Fluctuating Attitudes of Target Consumers for Sustainable Fashion Markets Across India. In: Muthu, S.S. (eds) Novel Sustainable Alternative Approaches for the Textiles and Fashion Industry. Sustainable Textiles: Production, Processing, Manufacturing & Chemistry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37060-1_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37060-1_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-37059-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-37060-1
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)