Vegetarian Society launch Climate Change ads
24th September 2007 by Alex Briggs1 Comment
The Vegetarian Society has launched a new ad campaign on climate change. The ads are aimed at educating the public as to the carbon emitted by livestock.
This often overlooked issue was addressed by Rowland Hill, the Sustainability Manager at Marks and Spencer, in one of our podcasts as he talked about measuring the carbon footprint of their top selling ready meal, Beef Lasagne:
. The example that I was quoting today was in terms of “recipe dish meals” which Marks and Spencer are famous for. Our biggest selling recipe dish meal is beef lasagne. What we have learned from that, is that the best way of reducing the carbon impact of a beef lasagne, you can reduce a fifth of it by actually taking the beef out and putting vegetables in instead. You can reduce a tenth of it by microwaving it instead of cooking it, and you can reduce one percent of it by substituting virgin packaging materials with recycled ones.
And from that, transport does not play a significant role, lots of other things that other people might think of, does not play a significant role. I think arguably the packaging doesn’t cover one percent. Therefore, all the things that people currently perhaps think they can do, are not necessarily the solutions. The point I was making there is, we need that knowledge, we need standards, we need ways of communicating it, in order to improve products and behaviour. Because, in actual fact, we have only got parts of the solutions for all of those questions.
Here is the “Silent but Deadly” Vegetarian Society ad
26th September 2007 at 2:54 pm
Presumably if we stop farming and eating cows, then the cow population will be left to grow of its own volition. Or will be have to cull the cows? Seems a bit cruel…