BITS Pilani, Goa, one of India’s most prestigious institutes, became the latest signatory of the Green Tuesday Pledge to address the rising global climate change crisis. Once fully rolled out, they are to slash-down the use of animal products like eggs and meat by 15%.

“At BITS Pilani, Goa, we are always taking new steps towards environmental sustainability, and the Green Tuesday Initiative takes us one step closer to achieving our sustainability goals,” said Yash Jain, Student Mess Convenor. “Globally and in India, institutions are reducing their use of animal products and choosing plant-based foods to fight climate change,” added Richa Mehta, Director of Programs, Vegan Outreach.

India is the 5th most vulnerable country to climate change according to the latest global climate risk index. Animal agriculture is one of the largest contributors of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, and multiple reports have identified it as one of the leading causes of climate change. One such example is the recent report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2019), which emphasized a shift towards plant-based diets as a significant opportunity to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

We also wrote to the decision-makers of three other BITS Pilani campuses — Dubai, Hyderabad and Pilani — to take the lead and implement sustainable food policies. Educational institutes play an essential role in building the best future for the next generations, and steps such as the Green Tuesday Initiative will be the way to go.

About the Green Tuesday campaign
Green Tuesday Initiative is a campaign by Vegan Outreach to help institutions reduce their environmental footprint by making small changes in the food they serve. So far, we’ve collaborated with twenty-two institutions in India.

Most of our work is remote these days, and our team is making the best out of these challenging times. I’m writing to share some of the positive changes and highlights that are giving me hope

Remote College Outreach

We’ve kept our outreach going during the lockdown in creative ways by collaborating with colleges and engaging with students through phone calls, webinars, and emails. Over 3,000 students from 21 colleges signed up for 10 Weeks to Vegan during the lockdown!

Campaign Successes

Here are some of our latest victories:

Hetero, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in India, will now serve meat-free meals to their employees every day to reduce their environmental footprint. Once fully rolled out to all locations, over 2 million meals will be made meat-free every year. Vegan Outreach worked with the company to implement this sustainable food policy as part of its Green Tuesday Initiative campaign and will also organize employee awareness sessions on animal agriculture and its environmental impact.

This change will make a big impact by reducing the suffering of animals in India. This sustainable food policy will also contribute to the wellness of employees and helps the environment.
Animal agriculture is one of the largest contributors of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, water pollution, and air pollution. Worldwide, meat and dairy production uses 83% of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Help us reach even more institutions. Please donate today to support our work in India.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve had to put our public outreach on hold. Still, we’re keeping our focus on the end game–a future where animals are no longer killed for food—and we aim to meet our goal of 80,000 signups for our 10 Weeks to Vegan program for the first half of 2020.

Before college campuses shut down, the outreach coordinators below inspired us with how many signups they received!

Saurabh Sonkar

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 5,514
• Booklets handed out: 5,563
• VR views: 962

Irving Martinez

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 3,340
• Booklets handed out: 5,485
• VR views: 301

Richa Mehta

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 3,194
• Booklets handed out: 4,576
• VR views: 2,055

Brent Ratkovich

“We’re all doing this work to inspire and empower people to go vegan. We all take on the important responsibility of being the educators and bringing the inspiration to the students and the public in general. That inspiration can go both ways—a few moments can light a fire and make you feel like you can make a big difference in someone’s life.”

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 2,941
• Booklets handed out: 1,433

Perla Anerol

“I’ve had several interactions with people who immediately rejected 10 Weeks to Vegan because they weren’t vegan and because they like meat. However, it’s so nice when they finally sign up after I explain that the goal is precisely for people like them to discover delicious and nutritious dishes that do not involve hurting animals.”

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 2,394
• Booklets handed out: 4,710

Ben Gardner

• 10 Weeks to vegan signups: 2,374
• Booklets handed out: 7,193
• VR views: 205

Ethan Blake

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 2,086
• Booklets handed out: 5,528
• VR views: 85

Astha Gupta

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 1,877
• Booklets handed out: 2,574
• VR views: 448

Brian Chavez

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 1,805
• Booklets handed out: 3,946

Abhishek Dubey

• 10 Weeks to Vegan signups: 1,731
• Booklets handed out: 1,115

Thank you to all the above community outreach coordinators as well as the many we didn’t list who also contributed substantially to signing up over 60,000 people for 10 Weeks to Vegan so far in 2020!

A new study investigating diets and the factors that influence whether people keep to them has been released (1). In a study published in the journal Nutrients, the authors compare a variety of diets in an effort to determine whether people tend to stick to certain types of diets over others and which factors, if any, help or hinder them in doing so. In particular, they examine the potential impact of personality, mental health, and motivations for dietary choices.

The authors included five types of diets in their study—vegan, vegetarian, paleo, gluten-free, and weight loss. They selected a group of 292 participants already following one of these diets and asked them about what helps them maintain a diet and occasions when they struggled to do so. The participants were then also given questionnaires about their demographics, personalities, mental health, dietary motivations, and adherence to their diets.

Ultimately, vegans and vegetarians, respectively, were found to be the most likely to stick to their diets, with those following paleo, gluten-free, and weight loss diets more likely to stray. Veg*ns also reported having less trouble in keeping to their dietary choices and were more likely to view their diets as self-expression rather than a task requiring restriction or willpower.

Perhaps surprisingly, from a number of factors that included depression and disordered eating, self-control, age, gender, ethnicity and many more, only four were found to have a significant impact in the final analysis. Self-efficacy and social identification with one’s dietary group (which were positive predictors of adherence), and mood and weight control (which were negative predictors). In other words, people who saw their diet as an important and positive part of their identity and were confident in their ability to stick with it were more likely to remain on that diet, while those motivated by a desire to lose weight (notably, as contrasted with a desire to become healthier) and those who eat for emotional reasons were less likely to remain on their diets.

While some considerations, such as the number and diversity of its participants, limit the potential inferences and applications of this exploratory study, it does have a number of interesting implications. For example, the authors suggest that the importance of motivations of dietary choices for the adherence to diets is currently under-appreciated, and that thinking of diets in individualistic terms, rather than conceptualizing them as part of a broader context, contribute to straying from them. Above all, though, it points to the potential of people “find[ing] positive ways to self-define in terms of their dietary patterns” to make a change for good.

References

1. Cruwys T, Norwood R, Chachay VS, Ntontis E, Sheffield J. “An Important Part of Who I am”: The Predictors of Dietary Adherence among Weight-Loss, Vegetarian, Vegan, Paleo, and Gluten-Free Dietary Groups. Nutrients. 2020 Apr 1;12(4).

by Jack Norris, Executive Director

Throughout our history, Vegan Outreach has faced many tough situations challenging our ability to do public outreach—9/11, the Great Recession, and an onslaught of blizzards, hurricanes, and heatwaves. Through it all, VO has kept our focus on the end game–bringing about an end to killing animals for food.

In addition to these society-wide disruptions, there’s been an endless flow of urgent animal issues that could have consumed all of our time and resources. But we knew that the spread of veganism is critical to ending this flow of animal tragedies. So, literally, come snow, wind, or high water we’ve been on the front lines spreading animal-free eating and bringing new advocates into the animal rights movement.

Now the front lines are being disrupted again—we’re facing a global epidemic that is making public outreach challenging to say the least.

Our outreach staff has been courageous these last few weeks as they continue to speak for the animals on college campuses and at other events. But the situation on the ground is becoming more tenuous by the day. Colleges are rapidly moving to online classes and large public events are being canceled. This situation shows no sign of abating anytime soon and we might be facing obstacles for months, if not a year or more.

Vegan Outreach didn’t forget about farmed animals in 2001 or in 2008, and we won’t forget about farmed animals during these tough times—we’ll adapt our outreach.

We currently have a prolific, cost-effective online ad campaign for 10 Weeks to Vegan and Get Healthy guided challenges, and in recent months, we’ve expanded our online support for the thousands of people a month who sign up for these challenges.

Our surveys show that online 10 Weeks to Vegan outreach is extremely effective—based on people’s food intake, 10 Weeks to Vegan results in a 29.4% conversion of participants to vegetarian or vegan (see Impact of 10 Weeks to Vegan for more info).

As community and college outreach faces increasing challenges, we at Vegan Outreach are brainstorming effective ways to spread veganism while also protecting our staff.

We want our donors, who pay for everything we do, to know what we’re doing with their money and what’s going on behind the scenes. If you’re one of the wonderful people who has invested in Vegan Outreach—thank you. Your funds will continue creating new vegans every single day.

We’re still in the early stages of planning, but want you to know that we’ll be keeping you informed about how we’re adapting our tactics to this quickly-developing situation.

We hope that you are staying safe and healthy during this time.