Consumer Awareness of Sustainable Fashion and Circular Economy in India: Findings from a Primary Survey

Author(s)	Ms. Garima Singh, Dr. Neena Sharma
Country	India
Abstract	Despite growing academic interest in circular economy (CE) adoption within the fashion sector, few studies have mapped where Indian consumers actually stand on basic awareness. This paper reports descriptive findings from a primary survey of 200 respondents collected in 2024. The central finding is a 38-percentage-point gap between awareness of sustainable fashion (77.5%) and familiarity with circular economy in fashion (39.5%). Respondents hold strongly positive beliefs about sustainable fashion, scoring 4.38 out of 5 on environmental benefit, but actual purchasing behavior lags considerably at 3.02. Behavioral intention scores are high (mean 4.08), suggesting that motivation is not the problem; knowledge and channel infrastructure are. Cross-tabulation results show that women and the 28-37 age group report higher CE familiarity than other segments. These findings point to a specific communication gap that CE practitioners and policymakers in India need to address before infrastructure-side interventions can gain traction.
Keywords	circular economy, sustainable fashion, consumer awareness, India, theory of planned behavior
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 3, May-June 2026
Published On	2026-06-04
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i03.80351

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