Probing Consumer Awareness & Barriers Towards Consumer Social Responsibility: A Novel Sustainable Development Approach Mamta Soni 1* , Sunny Dawar 1 , Amit Soni 2 1 Faculty of Management & Commerce, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur 303007, Rajasthan, India 2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur 303007, Rajasthan, India Corresponding Author Email: mamtasoni_09@yahoo.co.in https://doi.org/10.18280/ijsdp.160109 ABSTRACT Received: 23 July 2020 Accepted: 18 November 2020 Global scenario has revealed paucity of consumers’ awareness towards their social responsibilities which is certainly crucial to step forward on path of sustainable development. Regulating corporates practices has practically struggled for resource wastage reduction, dipping environmental harm, and improving societal welfare. Only corporates efforts are insufficient for desired improvement of societal & environmental health and demand consumers understanding their responsible actions towards society & environment. Centre of attention is to identify relationship between Consumer Social Responsibility (CnSR) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This relationship is endeavored by means of relationship matrix in which four unique developments are considered and accordingly solutions are suggested. Existence of barriers hindering consumers green decisions have been observed and addressed for better understanding. A total of 600 structured questionnaires were distributed, of which 457 returned and included incomplete contents also. Analysis is finally executed using 429 complete responses. Results are utilized to overcome barriers and improvise the consumers’ awareness towards various antecedents of CnSR for required sustainable consumption. Consumers’ requires support towards sustainable choices and as their awareness level will increase, they will start understanding the implications of their consumption choices leading to long-term sustainable practices. Keywords: consumer’s awareness, consumer social responsibility (CNSR), corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable development, green consumption barriers, push & pull development 1. INTRODUCTION Present scenario worldwide reflects major role of technological advancements for augmenting comfort in human life. Further, this growth experienced are associated with numerous environmental challenges which comprises global warming, energy & water scarcity issues, pollution etc. Required environment equilibrium will be achieved when patterns for consumption and production endorses “minimal or zero harm” which will lead towards Sustainable Development. Sustainability is optimum or minimal utilization of available resources for present need and preserving these for next generation. Reflections made in United Nations report [1]; clearly indicates water as utmost important component for the survival of life on Earth. Analyzing facts revealed that presently, water is not reachable to more than one billion people and if this situation remains then most people will be affected by severe shortage of fresh water by 2050. Similarly, food wastage figures recorded due to inferior transit and harvest methods are also shocking. This indicates that most of the food material gets wasted by rotting in consumers and retailers’ bins. To add furthermore, air pollution is another serious concern which indicates that almost nine out of ten people inhale polluted air across the world. Results recorded indicates that every year, about seven million people experience death due to air pollution. Facts recorded are alarming and seriously raise demand for rigorous steps towards Sustainable consumption and production practices. From last many decades, world economies have been interminably struggling for required sustainable development. In view of the same, production and consumption are required to be mapped accordingly with an aim to make Earth, a better place for survival of all. As far as production is concerned, many efforts are already being attempted with the support of legal framework. One of such popular frameworks is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), where corporates’ are stressing much more on environmental performance over the economic one considering pressures from governments, NGO’s and customers [2]. Researchers have shown that corporate houses have been trying hard to fulfill their part of social responsibility through CSR activities [3]. But facts recorded indicates that, CSR activities can only contribute for some portion of corporates’ profit towards societal developments. Alternatively, this is observed that if we consider sustainable production then this can only be achieved through consumers’ actions. Today’s scenario clearly reflects that in pressure of CSR rules, the corporates’ are pursuing CSR activities which further lead to little welfare of society. Further, this is elaborated that steps such as: eco-friendly innovations, optimum resource utilization and corporate social activities [4]; helps in drawing picture of Industrial sustainability but are insufficient in delivering long term sustainability. Sustainability dream cannot be only fulfilled through framed CSR activities [5]; and in view to achieve this, consumers are required to be put into frame. CSR activities have also attributed positive effects on consumers, as they get attracted International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning Vol. 16, No. 1, February, 2021, pp. 89-96 Journal homepage: http://iieta.org/journals/ijsdp 89