Environmental columnist Martin Cooper discusses the issue of whether public organisations should bring in plant-based food rules.

The Hunts Post: Martin Cooper Martin Cooper (Image: Martin Cooper)

There's been a debate in our local councils recently - to only serve plant-based food in a bid to reduce carbon footprints.

Many universities, hospitals and other public organisations have done it for the same reason - and given the impact of meat and dairy on the world's carbon emissions, it's an easy way to do it.

But in the past couple of weeks there has been controversy - some local councillors have been ‘outraged’ at the fact people are not being given a choice to eat meat or dairy in their canteens or at their events.

But what does this bickering, and ultimately the political games, achieve?

Meat – or specifically, meat produced in intensive factory farms– is not good for our planet and the majority of meat bought in the UK, in supermarkets or at fast food outlets, is produced this way.

These farms are part of a global mass-producing meat and dairy industry, that destroys large areas of rainforests to graze cattle or to grow food to feed to animals, which in turn reduces the number of trees we have that are responsible for carbon capture which helps regulate our planet.

According to Greenpeace, if everyone ate a plant-based diet, we would need 75 per cent less farmland to feed humans directly, rather than to feed animals for humans to eat - equivalent to the US, China, Europe and Australia combined.

To prevent damaging our planet any further, we need to be eating 70 per cent less meat and dairy by 2030.

This isn’t just about people’s individual choices - our government has a part to play too.

But when something as basic as plant-based food becomes an opportunity for political point scoring in our local councils, what hope do we have for bigger change that might actually have an impact on the world we live in?