Supermarket fruit stalls. Phot Credit: Pixabay.com
The World Consumer Rights Day 2020 is celebrated today, March 15. It emphasizes the significance of consumer rights and protection as well as the need for sustainable consumption globally. The World Consumer Rights Day is an annual occasion observed by several countries worldwide to protect the consumers and to make sure that they are not subjected to social injustice and market abuse that may undermine their rights as a consumer.
To this day, several conferences and events are held that deals with human rights. New ideas for protecting consumer rights are also discussed in these events but this year's celebration is focused on safeguarding sustainability to consumers.
Theme: #SustainableConsumer
The growing population and the way people consume goods could pose problems to our environment. If all people in the planet lives like the average Western European, Earth may not be sustainable at all because we will need two more planets to do that. On some parts of the planet however, about 1 billion people do not have access to decent quality and life because they live in extreme poverty.
To protect our planet and give humanity and its future generation's fair social conditions they need, we should now think about how we produce and consume goods services. This year's theme aims to increase efficiency and fair trade while helping to assuage poverty and for the people to enjoy a quality life with complete access to basic commodities such as food, water, medicine, and energy.
Sustainable products have an increasing demand from younger consumers with 81% of the respondents thinks that companies should be helping to improve the environment. Recently, Nestle had just announced that it is planting 3 million trees to help combat climate change; Microsoft and Amazon have also pledged to take action in reducing carbon emissions.
Read: Nestle to Plant 3 Million Trees to Curb Carbon Emissions
But according to some studies, using sustainable products- like stainless steel straws, reusable silicone plastic sandwich bags, or reusable produce bags- could be a little pricey than their non-sustainable counterparts. In general, it is not easy to only use these types of products because it requires effort for the consumer's part to do research and to find the right purchase, type of behavior, or requires more money to be spent.
Importance of Consumer Rights Day
By definition, Consumer Right is the 'right to information' and as we celebrate the Consumer Rights Day, we are giving importance to the rights of the consumers worldwide.
Every consumer has the right to safety, to be informed, to choose, to be heard, to redressal, and consumer education. Consumers need to know their rights because it is what inspired President John F. Kennedy to address this concern on March 15, 1962.
It was not until in the year 1983 did we celebrate the first World Consumer Rights Day, and ever since then, we have celebrated it annually on March 15. Two years later, the general guidelines for consumer protection were approved in the United Nations on April 9, 1985.
