Perceiving and understanding the human population in its role as a consumer is very important because consumers collectively spend two thirds of a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). They buy and influence the purchase of an increasingly wide array of products. Despite the fact that we are making consumer decisions in an emerging global community, people are still being taught how to be "good consumers", when actually the word consume means, "to destroy, use or expend". The enormous productive capacities and market forces of the planet have been committed to satisfying human needs and desires with little overall regard to the short-term or long-term future of life on the planet, or life in other nations or in future generations. There are many different types of consumers and they all need to be taken into account separately: teen, young adult, elderly, low income, disabled, illiterate, and ethnic. Each type of consumers need to be understood from the point of view of a global perspective; a global perspective that challenges materialism and promotes ecological responsibility, humanitarianism, well-being, consumer ethics and the Global Community concepts. These concepts were developed to sustain Earth and they include world conditions, global problems and issues, global citizenship, stewardship of the ecosystem of the Earth, a moral and a spiritual community, universal values, and global interconnections.

Each type of consumers need to be understood from the point of view of a global perspective; a global perspective that challenges materialism and promotes ecological responsibility, humanitarianism, well-being, consumer ethics and the Global Community concepts.

Consumption in developing countries has risen much faster over decade than in the industrialized countries due to their high rate of population growth, fast urban development, increased motorization and industrialization. In the OECD countries, a decline in world prices does not usually stimulate consumption because taxes on oil products account for most of the price to end-users.

The Global Community is concerned with the sustainability of current levels and patterns of consumption and with the economic, political, personal, environmental, availability of resources, societal and spiritual impact of excessive, run-away consumption. About 20% of Earth’s people account for 80% of the world's total consumption. We have assigned ourselves the task of finding ways to make consumption, consumer rights and responsibilities:

*     Fair to the well-being of others
*     Socially responsible and sustainable to future generations
*     In line with the universal values
*     In line with human rights and responsibilities