Experiments in Living

Greetings fellow travellers. This interview is from this month’s IVU Newsletter.

Ghent, Belgium has the distinction of being the world’s first city to have a Meatless Day. We asked Tobias Leenaert of the Belgian organisation EVA (Ethical Vegetarian Alternative) for more on what’s happening there.

1. Please tell us the history of how Meatless Thursday came to be. What was your society’s role in making this happen?

EVA started its “Thursday Veggie Day” campaign at the end of 2007. Last year, we managed to convince IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) chairperson, Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri, to come to Ghent and give a talk about meat and global warming

Tom Balthazar, the Ghent councilman responsible for the environment, was there, and, after that, he became more and more convinced of the importance of meat reduction. We made contact with two of his staff who were also enthusiastic, and we suggested that they ask Balthazar if he would be prepared to officially proclaim Thursdays to be veggie days in Ghent. Apparently, he didn’t need much convincing, and he managed to get his colleagues on the executive council of the city to go along with him.

2. How does the Ghent city government support the Meatless Thursdays? Is it just lip service?

The city supports the campaign in several ways: we receive financial support; several city employees have already spent many days on the campaign; we have developed and distributed campaign materials together; we organized the launch event together; and from October, 2009 onwards, city funded schools will have vegetarian dishes by default on Thursday. The latter was decided by the councilman for the environment. So no, it’s definitely not just lip service.

3. What is the public reaction? What percentage of people would you estimate are reducing their meat consumption?

We haven’t done any research yet; we plan to that in October. But so far we have heard many, many positive comments, and many people tell us they are participating.

4. Are other Belgian cities or towns thinking of following Ghent’s example?

The town of Hasselt has already declared that it will start in October. There have also been some other towns expressing an interest, and we will start working on the bigger cities, like Antwerp and Brussels. Internationally, Sao Paulo, Brazil is already convinced, and they’re working on it in France, UK, Austria, Israel, etc.

5. Has your organisation grown as a result of the success of Veggie Day?

We have certainly received a lot of attention and inquiries, and we have attracted new advertisers and interested potential partners. We recently also received a national sustainability award. I can feel that the whole campaign has brought us a lot of recognition and that the road is wide open for further growth. We have also received a lot of international inquiries from sister organisations all over, and it’s particularly rewarding to see that our campaign has inspired other people.

6. What is being planned to broaden and deepen Veggie Day?

We are now trying to organize something on the European level, and are checking if we can collaborate with the Meatless Monday campaign by Paul McCartney. We are also getting the support again of Dr. Pachauri, who will urge other cities to follow Ghent’s example.

Furthermore, we want to make sure Ghent succeeds as a pilot city and serves as an example for other cities to follow.

7. Any advice for organisations hoping to do something similar?

My main advice would be to take this from the environmental and health angle, not from an animal rights angle. The meat reduction angle is also much more successful than the all-or-nothing vegetarian angle. Obviously, it’s good to present the benefits for the city or the city official involved. Make them concrete (CO2 saved, health benefits…). In general, I think it is fruitful to work at a city level rather than a national level.

Some material can be found at http://www.vegetarisme.be/ghent People are also welcome to write me at tobias@vegetarian.be for more info.