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Berlin universities are trying to reduce carbon emissions by reducing the supply of meat.
The canteens of Berlin universities in Germany will be changed from the next semester to serving vegan and vegetarian food, in order to promote a “climate-friendly” menu.
Starting from October, the menu composition of students ordering in the cafeteria will be 68% vegan, 28% vegetarian, and 4% meat and fish.
No meat will be served at all on Mondays, and the coffee sausage will be replaced with a salad (salad).
The university cafeteria is currently closed, but you can order food through self-pick-up.
The new menu is designed to reduce the carbon footprint of universities in the German capital.
Among traditional German dishes, meat is very common, such as schnitzel, German fried sausage and German salted pork knuckles.
A 2019 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described that plant-based diets have a great opportunity to reduce the extent of climate change.
Daniela Kummle, a member of the Student Service Center (Studierendenwerk), a student support organization in Germany, told the BBC that their canteens have increasingly strong requirements for the use of meatless restaurants.
Kumler mentioned the results of a student survey in 2019 and found that 14% of students in Berlin said they were vegans and 33% were vegetarians.
She said that the University Student Service Center operates 34 canteens in Berlin universities and colleges. They adjusted their menus during the global epidemic, “making our supply more’climate-friendly'”.
The meals that students will be able to order include a vegan stew made with coconut milk and red lentils, as well as chickpeas and quinoa with vegetables and chia seeds.
Kumler said that with the exception of a small number of negative comments on social media, most of the students’ reactions so far have been positive.
The Technical University of Berlin took the lead in opening the first vegan student canteen in Berlin in 2019, showing that Germany is increasingly inclined to a plant-based diet.
In fact, this kind of diet is very popular locally, and Germany ranks first on the list of vegetarianism in a cross-border diet survey conducted by the Wiganz supermarket chain in 2020. The survey showed that 2.6 million people in the country are vegans-3.2% of the total population, and about 3.6 million people are vegetarians, accounting for 4.4% of the population.
At the same time, climate protection is becoming an increasingly important topic in Berlin universities, and many universities have formulated detailed plans to reduce carbon emissions.
The Humboldt University in Berlin hopes to be climate neutral by 2030 and has hired two climate protection managers. The Technical University of Berlin also has the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2045.
The two universities are also refurbishing their buildings to make them more energy efficient.
Hundreds of staff at the two universities also voluntarily pledged to give up flying on short business trips.
Prof Hans-Ulrich Heiss, responsible for sustainable policy at the Technical University of Berlin, said: “We have taken the issue of climate protection a big step forward in the past four years.”