Veganism Awareness

In 2021, Student Parliament passed a policy to raise awareness of veganism, including the impact it has on animal welfare and sustainability.

You can read the full policy HERE, which includes actions and useful information.  

If you want to get more involved, you can find out more by joining the Vegan Society. You can also find out more information, including links to videos and resources, at the link HERE.

Plant-Based Universities

The Plant-Based Strathclyde campaign has been led by students, including the Vegan Society, at Strathclyde over the past academic year (2022/2023).

Get involved by reaching out to the Vegan Society HERE.

Campaign Progress

A proposal calling for Strath Union to support and transition to 100% plant-based catering by 2025 and to lobby the university to facilitate the same was discussed at Student Parliament in March 2023.

You can read the full policy HERE.

As quoracy was not reached for this meeting, voting on this proposal will be postponed until the next Student Parliament.

Context

This campaign is part of the wider Animal Rebellion campaign, which calls for universities and their associated institutions to transition to fully plant-based catering:

• Transitioning to a plant-based food system frees up 76%* of global farmland, the size of Europe, Australia the US and China combined. Rewilding this freed-up land will restore wildlife, end mass extinction and draw down as much carbon dioxide as is currently emitted through fossil fuels each year**. This is the key solution to the climate and nature emergency.
• Fully plant-based catering is the next logical and necessary step in the university’s mission to tackle the climate crisis.
• The UK will be carbon negative if we have a plant-based food system and rewild land***. Therefore, plant-based university campuses are a great first step in achieving the key solution to combatting the climate and ecological crisis
• Our universities are the birthplace of much of our understanding on the climate crisis. They have a responsibility to act on their research. The science is clear - we cannot tackle the climate crisis without a transition to a just and sustainable plant-based food system.
• As a community, we must act and students and staff should get behind this transition. It is our future on the line.

Sources: *Poor and Nemececk, 2018, **Searchinger et al, 2018, ***Harwatt and Hayeck  2019, Animal Rebellion.