PBUoE Policy Motion

Transition to a Just and Sustainable Plant-Based Catering System

Resolves:

1. To transition towards fully plant-based catering across any Students’ Association venues that serve food and include climate footprint calculations on menus. [1]

2. This transition would include the following milestones: 50% plant-based by the 2024-25 academic year, 75% by 2025-26, and 100% by 2026-27.

3. Embrace feedback from students and staff throughout the development and testing of plant-based menus so that we can ensure the change is an

improvement on all fronts.

4. For the Students’ Association to support the Plant-Based University of Edinburgh Campaign by lobbying the University to go fully plant-based.

Background:

1. A plant-based catering system produces and sells food that is not derived from animal products, but instead from plant-based sources of nutrition.

2. We are facing a global climate and ecological emergency and must limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures, which requires the urgent removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

3. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report directly references the impact of animal agriculture on the climate crisis. [2]

4. Animal agriculture is the biggest land user in the UK [3], occupying 48% of UK land, and is massively inefficient in terms of its land use to food output ratio.

5. The most readily available, scalable option for carbon dioxide removal in the UK is restoration of native forests, which would mean repurposing this land. [4]

6. Animal agriculture produces more emissions than the entire transport industry [5].

7. The University of Edinburgh is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2040; this is neither soon enough nor doable whilst animal products are still being served.

8. Plant-Based Universities is a student-led campaign with over 40 active campaigns across the UK and international higher education institutes.

9. The national campaign has professional support from three catering and nutritional organisations to ensure a swift and easy transition to plant-based

catering: ProVeg facilitates menu innovation, overseen by Plant-based Health Professionals to ensure nutritional adequacy, and Forward Food offers training to catering staff, as well as climate footprint calculations and labelling for food items. These companies are willing to provide these services free of charge.

10. There is precedence for this motion: The University of Stirling Students’ Union voted to go 100% plant-based by 2025 in November. [6]

11. The University of Cambridge Students’ Union voted to go 100% plant-based in February, with 72% of non-abstaining votes in favour of the motion. [7]

12. The University of Kent Students’ Union voted to go 100% plant-based by 2025 in February. [8]

13. Queen Mary University of London voted to go 60% plant-based by the 2024-25 academic year, and 100% by 2028-29. [9]

14. Edinburgh City Council endorsed a similar campaign, the Plant-Based Treaty, in January, acknowledging the effect of animal agriculture on the climate crisis. [10]

Beliefs:

1. The worst—and rapidly worsening—effects of climate change are already being felt by people in the Global South, and we have a moral and social responsibility to do everything in our power to prevent it from getting worse; there is no compromise to be found between supporting animal agriculture and halting global warming.

2. Our proposal is an effective way to action the University’s climate change targets, and will help not only to achieve the goal of Zero by 2040 but to do so in a much shorter time span, which is essential if we wish to avoid climate disaster, as the current science indicates. [2] [5] [11] [12] [13]

3. Our motion would also achieve progress toward the aims outlined in EUSA’s Sustainability and Action Plan, and help EUSA reach its goal to “Empower, educate and equip [its] members on sustainability.” [14]

4. A plant-based diet is always culturally inclusive, being halal, kosher, and nutritionally adequate, and revamping the menus would provide an opportunity to better accommodate a wider range of dietary requirements.

5. For the improved catering system to be just and sustainable, prices should be affordable for all students and reflect the lower cost of plant-based ingredients relative to animal-based ones; currently, due to the cost-of-living crisis, more than 1 in 10 students are relying on food banks [15].

6. The milestones set should be achieved in all venues, so these changes can be seen across campus.

[1] https://www.ed.ac.uk/sustainability/programmes-and-projects/supply-chains-and investments/good-food/carbon-emissions-on-our-menus

[2] AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023 - https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

[3] Harwatt, H. and Hayek, M. (2019). Eating Away at Climate Change with Negative Emissions. Repurposing UK agricultural land to meet climate goals. - Harvard Law School

[4] Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend – Nature

[5] Farming for Failure, How European Animal Farming Fuels the Climate Emergency - Greenpeace

[6] Stirling University Students' Union votes to go 100% vegan – BBC news [7] Cambridge University students vote for completely vegan menus – The Guardian [8] Plant-based University Catering – Kent Union

[9] Queen Mary Students’ Union to adopt fully plant-based catering – The Tab

[10] Edinburgh becomes first capital city in Europe to endorse Plant Based Treaty to fight climate change – Edinburgh News

[11] New estimates of the environmental cost of food | University of Oxford

[12] Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers - ORA - Oxford University Research Archive

[13] Forget 2050, experts say it’s 2030 or bust for net zero emissions – The Citizen [14] https://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/about/sustainability/policy

[15] More than one in ten students are forced to use food banks – The Tab