Meat Free Mondays might be removed by UCLU

Starving Sabbatical Officers Nick Edmonds (Activities and Events) and Zakariya Mohran (Sustainability, Engagement and Operations), have proposed a motion seeking to repeal Meat Free Mondays in UCLU cafés, citing their desire to ‘liberate their lunchtimes’.

Meat Free Mondays was introduced last year following concern from some students about a lack of awareness for the environmental issues surrounding meat eating, highlighting UN data which suggests livestock production accounts for 14.5 per cent of all greenhouse gases.

However, the new proposal views the movement as “an infringement upon each person’s ability to make their own choices” which drives sales elsewhere rather than stunting meat production. A Union conducted survey discovered that 44 per cent of students bring in food from home or look elsewhere after Meat Free Mondays was introduced, whilst on average, Monday sales have dipped 13.4 per cent since before implementation.

Therefore, the motion proposes, by continuing Meat Free Mondays the union is doing very little to reduce the student body carbon footprint, instead driving sales elsewhere, thus reducing union profit which is reinvested in to student activities, services and campaigns.

The motion has already attracted controversy, with an online petition gaining over 60 signatures in an hour and claiming that to repeal Meat Free Mondays would be “to regress into unsustainability.”

The motion is set to be discussed on Tuesday, November 1st at a Union Council meeting between 6pm and 9pm to Chadwick G07. The event is open to all but only appointed council members can vote.