Anglia Ruskin University To Reduce Meat Consumption On Campus By 50% In Sustainability Drive

Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) has pledged to reduce meat consumption on its campuses by 50 percent in the next six years.

The move is part of the University’s Sustainability Strategy, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.

Other incentives include banning the sale of single-use plastics by 2022 and increasing its recycling rate to 60 percent.

‘Ambitious strategy’

Professor Roderick Watkins, Vice Chancellor of ARU, said in a statement: “This ambitious strategy ensures that sustainability will be embedded in everything we do – affecting campus life for every member of staff and student.

“We are taking responsibility for all our carbon emissions – this is more than just being ‘net zero’ and offsetting the emissions we produce, it is a total elimination of carbon emissions by 2045. This will benefit our local communities immensely.”

Red meat ban

A slew of universities ditched red meat earlier this year to slash their emissions, including the prestigious Oxbridge establishments.

“Sustainability is extremely important to our students and staff and we wanted to ensure that we were not only responding to their needs, but pushing what was considered possible in a catering environment,” said Nick White, Head of Cambridge University’s Catering Service.

“This has involved making sacrifices, but it has been absolutely the right thing to do. It’s about making the right choice easy.”

Cambridge’s initiative of replacing beef and lamb with plant-based products lead to a 33 percent reduction in carbon emissions per kilogram of food purchased.

It also saw a 28 percent reduction in land use per kilogram of food purchased.