By Ross Collie

A recent vote in Stirling University’s Students Union has created history – marking the first students union in the United Kingdom to adopt a 100 per cent plant-based menu by 2025, and reaching half plant-based by the end of the next academic year.

The initiative is a clear win for the planet. There are several studies which agree that meat production is costlier to the climate than plant-based production. With climate change warnings growing louder across the world, it is clear things must change.

However, changing the union eateries’ menus so drastically and so quickly is not so easy.

Firstly, it is important that for the measure to succeed, it needs support from those students who eat in the union’s eateries. Of the university’s 17,000 students, who all have a vote, less than 0.01 per cent voted for the motion to pass.

The motion received major backlash among the student body, and gained national media attention, to which much of the response was scathing. The vote’s ambition is only serving to turn people away from the noble cause, due to such a weak mandate and a perceived theft of a student favourite – chicken dippers.

The support for the plant-based initiative is necessary for success, as enough people must want to eat the food for the plan to be cost effective. With a relatively short deadline to create a menu large enough to replace the popular existing one, it will be hard to find ways to keep the prices down.

As food prices are rocketing across the country due to inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, many are seeking cheaper options for their meals. Plant-based alternatives have always costed more due to lower demand, and may leave the union struggling to remain cost-effective, especially if union eateries suffer in popularity compared to their university-owned counterparts.

In response to much of the criticism, the proponents of the plant-based commitment have defended their motion. Their claims of an ‘intent to educate’ fall flat when a beloved menu is forcefully removed, with no educative resources are given.

The desire to provide cheap plant-based options must also be considered carefully, especially during a cost-of-living crisis, for if people feel their pockets are lighter after implementation, it will turn people away and hurt the movement in the long run.

The idea behind the motion – to save the climate – is popular, and there should be no doubt that it is a necessary step, backed by plentiful science. But caution, as with many other issues, must be used to avoid backfire. Slow but steady progress wins the race against the climate’s ticking doomsday clock.