Yesterday, in an email sent out to students at Imperial College London, plans were unveiled to replace beef with venison on its menus. This has drawn criticism from students who say it is “not good enough” in the university’s work to tackle the climate and ecological crisis.
Hollie Meyers, a medicine student at Imperial College London and Plant-Based Universities coordinator at the university said:
“Swapping beef for venison is like swapping Marlboro for Benson & Hedges – it completely ignores the problem. Our university needs to listen to its own research output and take steps towards 100% plant-based menus.
No one grows up wanting to eat Bambi, and it certainly doesn’t do justice to the climate pledges made by Imperial College either. We urgently need to be looking at putting high-quality, delicious plant-based protein on our menus instead.
Our very own Grantham Institute has publicly supported the shift, and it’s shocking to see our catering services lagging behind. We hope this decision is changed swiftly and Imperial focuses, instead, on leading the way with plant-based menus” [1]
Campaigners point to Oxford and Harvard research showing that the transition to a plant-based food system would free around 76% of global farmland for rewilding and carbon drawdown, whilst the UK could be carbon-negative in the same move [2] [3].
Eight UK student unions have already committed to moving towards 100% plant-based menus, with more expected to follow. Imperial College claims that the carbon footprint of the venison it serves is around 6.3 CO2/e KG [4]. However, this is still a staggering 3x more emissions than tofu or a Beyond Burger [5].
Plant-Based Universities, an Animal Rising campaign, is an international initiative of students who are pushing for their universities and student unions to adopt 100% plant-based catering [6]. The group claims that universities have an obligation to follow the scientific research that they produce, detailing the environmental impacts of animal farming and fishing. The campaign is active in over 80 institutions, with the group encouraging interested students to sign up to run local campaigns.
