Environmental Events 2018: What is World Vegan Day?

Humans and our livestock make up a staggering 96% of all mammals on earth, only 4% are wild. This is dramatically reducing the biodiversity of our planet, which is leading to a mass of issues for our environment.

According to a recent study, avoiding meat and dairy is the single biggest way you can reduce your environmental impact on the planet. World Vegan Day aims to promote, educate and support vegan and vegetarian diets around the world.

The Vegan Society

Back in 1944, two members of The Vegetarian Society UK, Donald Watson and Elise Shrigley, found themselves feeling unsatisfied. While they had removed all meat from their diets, they felt that they could do more. After avoiding all animal-derived products, Watson and Shrigley felt pushed to create a new society, The Vegan Society, along with 23 other members.

In 1979, after the vegan diet definition had been clarified, The Vegan Society became a registered charity.

15 years later in 1994, chair of The Vegan Society Louise Wallis wanted to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the charity’s existence as well as celebrating the coinage of the terms vegan and veganism. So, she created World Vegan Day – an international celebration and promotion of the lifestyle, with events taking place across the globe.

World Vegan Day 2018

This year, Waitrose conducted a survey and discovered that a third of all Britons have stopped or reduced eating meat in the last 5 years. 38% of those asked that had made the change cited ‘environmental concerns’ as their motivation for going meat-free.

While there is no specific venue or guidelines for celebrating World Vegan Day, many of us across the globe took part. In the UK, the hashtags #WorldVeganMonth and #WorldVeganDay were trending on social media, with people sharing their stories, recipes and meat-consumption facts. The Vegan Society encourages people to host events, from food tastings to a vegan grocery shop for the week.

Whether you choose to try veganism for the day on November 1^st, or you are already successfully living a plant-based lifestyle, every change we make can help to protect our planet.

Vegan Day is just one of many events which promotes environmental change. We’re covering 5 of the most influential worldwide events of 2018. Be sure to check out our previous posts, on Earth Day and World Cleanup Day, as well as our next post about World Wildlife Day and how it aims to help our planet. Or, for a more in depth look at environmental issues, read the article ‘Sensitive determination of iron in drinking water, mineral water, groundwater, and spring water using rapid photometric tests’.