But I tend to think of my fellow beings as citizens rather than consumers. And I do think it is a citizen's duty to be considerate of their fellow and citizens, current and future.

Citizen has no meaning in context of economy (except for taxation). So using it in context of economic activity mixes up two unrelated things.

Bad actors in the economy tend to exploit such mix ups to shift the burden away from them.

Read up on introduction and promotion of the concept of individual carbon footprint. Or the reality of recycling which was promoted as alternative to producers of plastic being directly responsible for introducing plastic into the environment.