• as another poster mentioned, food allergies can make only vegan really hard for people with allergies to nuts, gluten or similar.

• I love cheese in any of its forms far too much.

I do also fully support the other posters points about using more reusable china / cutlery and that properly insulating the building (+ changing out the windows) - both should be a high priority as well.

I can see the merit in opting for predominantly vegetarian options, or even a mostly plant-based selection, but I don't think offering only plant-based options is a good solution. With department events, offering catering is a tool that is used by many to boost attendance numbers and also show appreciation to the attendees for giving up their time. I think that offering only plant-based catering options would decrease the appeal of this and may even lead to increased food waste.

This proposal also does not consider the fact that some individuals may have limited or restricted diets in which non-vegan options may be the best suited for them.

Overall, it is best to educate and encourage people to make more sustainable choices, rather than force them into doing so.

In terms of bringing about manageable change, vegetarian as standard seems a more palatable option for many reasons [pun intended].

As a non-veggie I find substitutes often not that great, e.g. soya milk. I would prefer cows milk but happily accept the organic option.

With respect, I have to share that I’ve personally found some responses to be quite disheartening. If those of us working at the forefront of sustainability research are unwilling to make small changes, like having an occasional tea/coffee that isn’t quite to our liking, then it’s hard not to worry about broader society's capacity to enact the much larger transformations the climate crisis demand.

Amy Trauger, The vegan industrial complex: the political ecology of not eating animals, Journal of Political Ecology (2022). 

TLTR: “The avoidance of accountability for harm, through a facile association with ethics and a plant-based diet, generates more harm to societies and the environment than it prevents”.

Kortetmäki, T. and Oksanen, M. (2021) ‘Is there a convincing case for climate veganism’, Agriculture and Human Values, 38(3), pp. 729–740.

TLTR: “it is hard to formulate a climatic argument that would convincingly create a moral obligation to strict veganism as a conclusion”

Dorgbetor, I.K. et al. (2022) ‘What If the World Went Vegan? A Review of the Impact on Natural Resources, Climate Change, and Economies’, Agriculture, 12(10), p. 1518.

TLTR: “The food chain and food web are natural phenomena, and to sustainably go with the status quo in food production is ideal for nature and the climate (not vegan led agriculture)”.

In the spirit of critique, I'm not wholly convinced by a global vegan diet which appears to be a mainly  Eurocentric matter (yes i'm implying we read coloniality into this). There is a nuanced debate about universal impact, i.e. impacts in the Global South.  I can send you masses of stuff on racial capitalism and colonialism if you like. We should have a focus on real impacts like taxing billionaires instead.

Firstly, the framing of this proposal as a “modest” step risks downplaying its symbolic and practical impact. It’s not merely about food at meetings - it signals a shift in institutional values that, while rooted in scientific concern, risks being perceived as moralising or coercive. The tone - while well-meaning - suggests that disagreement with the principle equates to disregard for climate action, which oversimplifies a complex ethical and cultural debate.

Secondly, this kind of blanket policy could unintentionally exclude or alienate staff and students who feel strongly about dietary autonomy, cultural food traditions, or health-related preferences. While the proposal stresses this is not about personal diet, the practical effect is that it does impact people’s experience of communal events. We should be wary of creating an environment where only one set of values appears institutionally validated, especially in a diverse School.

Could we still be allowed dairy milk in hot drinks?

We all know about climate change with plenty of evidence / expert recommendations linked above, and while not everyone agrees about the impact of individual choices, if the School moved to veggie catering we might help kickstart the change at university level - surely that would be impactful.

Although I am a meat eater, I eat plenty of meat-free dishes and doing so at SoGES events would be no skin off my nose.

If others feel strongly that they cannot go without meat, they can always bring their own food to catered events.

If this change does go ahead, I would like to see it go hand-in-hand with an increase in the quality and variety of vegan options provided by the catering team.

If our aim is genuinely to reduce the carbon footprint of School events, then I would suggest that a more impactful step than shifting to plant-based catering might be to reconsider the very practice of catering itself. The embedded emissions associated with meeting catering, whether vegan, vegetarian, or omnivorous, are not limited to the lifecycle impacts of the food items themselves, but include the broader supporting infrastructure: energy use in preparation, cold storage, packaging, transport and delivery logistics, and post-event food waste and disposal. These often-overlooked upstream and downstream components can represent a significant proportion of the total carbon and ecological footprint of event catering.

In that light, the most sustainable option may be to discontinue catered provision altogether and encourage colleagues to bring their own food. Such a move would also shift responsibility from institutional to individual choice in a way that aligns with autonomy and inclusivity, particularly in the context of diverse dietary needs shaped by medical, cultural, or religious factors. Furthermore, this would eliminate the performative dimensions of institutional sustainability gestures, in which carbon reductions are claimed via relatively small, visible changes while more structurally significant impacts (e.g. building energy use, academic travel, digital infrastructure) remain untouched or are even growing.

While I acknowledge the symbolic importance of plant-based catering as a form of institutional signalling, symbolism alone is insufficient. There is a risk of overstating the climate efficacy of such measures when they are not embedded within a wider systems-based mitigation strategy. Arguably, institutional sustainability efforts should aim not just to change what is served, but to ask why we serve at all, and whether such provisioning can be justified environmentally in an era of accelerating planetary crisis.

To be clear, this is not an argument against plant-based diets per se. The literature is unequivocal that animal agriculture, particularly ruminant livestock, contributes disproportionately to greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and biodiversity loss. However, the substitution of one catering model for another does not address the underlying carbon implications of organising food service as a default institutional practice. Nor does it address the broader ethical challenge of ensuring that our sustainability efforts are not reduced to technocratic or tokenistic interventions, but instead form part of a deeper reconsideration of consumption, entitlement, and organisational norms.

I would therefore support a reframing of this proposal toward a more radical, and arguably more sustainable, position: the elimination of catering at routine internal events, accompanied by an invitation for individuals to provide for themselves in line with their own values and needs. This would set a bolder example of climate leadership and demonstrate that our commitment to sustainability extends beyond dietary symbolism to include the more difficult but necessary task of institutional self-restraint.

Maybe a focus on reducing waste and using locally sourced foods could be a good middle ground?

1. As the paper points out the C emissions scenarios depend upon the full food profile (all foods and packaging) and where you are relative to sources and suppliers. This analysis has not been carried out, unless I have missed it.

2. We would have to vet the plant-based foods (we should now even) so no palm oil (hard), soya (hard), avocados (easy), and many more. Unfortunately may mass-used plants are even more damaging to our environment than animals can be.

3. Lastly probably unlike most of you I farm (now in North Norway) and my grass feeds about 30 sheep a year.. used for meat locally..(which is the lowest C emitting possibility in this environment) so to agree to such a blanket proposal would be hypocritical I feel.

4. Lastly I think this is very much a decision that should be up to the individual and not one that should be dictated to all..

TB

More generally, if the focus of providing food for meetings and things is to encourage people to come together, then going to a less inclusive form of reward goes against the ethos of providing the reward in the first place.

(Jo, former BSc Programme Leader)