Answer in Brief:
What is meant by Consumerism? How does it affect sustainable development?
Consumerism refers to the wish of purchasing more goods and services, which may not be needed at that time. It is the desire to have luxurious life by having possession of goods and services, which are not required to meet the basic necessities of life.
Consumerism affects the sustainable development adversely. As in consumerism the rate of resource consumption is more than the rate of resource production along with the generation of large amount of waste. This is evident from the fact that the population of US is only 5% of the total world population. But, it consumes around 20% of the world resources. If this rate of consumerism persists then there will be crisis of the resources.