LinkedIn Leads the Push for More Plant-Based Offices
The company’s San Francisco office trials a 65 percent plant-based menu and makes oat milk the default in coffee, as companies increasingly encourage employees to choose more sustainable plant-based food options.
The menu at LinkedIn’s San Francisco office is trialling a 65 percent plant-based menu, as the corporate world continues to shift towards more sustainable food options for employees to help businesses lower their carbon footprint.
The three-month pilot program to increase the number of plant-based dishes is part of LinkedIn’s efforts to help meet its goal of reaching carbon negativity by 2030, reports VegNews.
LinkedIn teamed up with Greener by Default (GBD), an organization which uses behavioral research to change food policy, so that menus encourage consumers to choose the more sustainable food option.
As part of the initiative, GBD implemented changes to the menu like increasing the amount of plant-based dishes on offer, making oat milk the default in coffee, and only serving carbon-intensive items like lamb and beef once per week.
“LinkedIn has strong corporate values around sustainability and taking intelligent risks,” Anna Bohbot, Global Food Program Manager at LinkedIn told VegNews about the move. “We’ve always incorporated plant-forward efforts into our program, but working with GBD allowed us to take it to the next level and make plant-based offerings front and center while still preserving freedom of choice.”
Staff feedback for the food was positive throughout the three months, and employees were choosing healthier food options too. With breakfast and lunch at the San Francisco office serving anywhere between 400 and 800 employees each day, these swaps helped to significantly lower LinkedIn’s carbon footprint.
“When you calculate the carbon footprint of all of the meat that would have been served without the pilot, it’s equal to 14,000 kilograms of CO2 equivalent, which is more than driving the circumference of the Earth,” Katie Cantrell, Director of Corporate Outreach at GBD, explained.
Meat-Free Offices Are More Sustainable
LinkedIn’s move towards more sustainable plant-based offices is the latest in businesses trying to make their workforce more sustainable.
Office-sharing company WeWork, which offers coworking spaces across the US, made headlines worldwide when it announced that it was going meat-free back in 2018. The move meant that meat was no longer being served at work events, and the company would no longer reimburse staff for meals containing meat.
“New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact - even more than switching to a hybrid car,” the company’s co-founder Miguel McKelvey told staff at the time.
With over 6,000 staff across the world, WeWork estimated its meat ban would save 16.7 billion gallons of water, 445 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and more than 15 millions animals over the course of five years.
Since WeWork’s bold industry-leading move five years ago, companies, institutions, and offices like LinkedIn have increasingly offered more and more plant-based food options, as well as incentives to encourage employees to choose them.
A new health initiative recently saw plant-based meals become the default dinner option for patients in New York City public hospitals, and already this year more than 150 organizations worldwide are taking part in Veganuary’s workplace challenge, which encourages offices to switch to serving vegan food for the month of January.
Aveda, Loyola Marymount University, and Behaviorally are among the U.S. companies and institutions participating in the challenge, which have hosted vegan potlucks, launched new plant-based menu items in staff cafeteries, and provided talks and resources to help employees make the switch.
Greener by Default makes plant-based food the default option in businesses, universities, conferences, and many other places, while giving diners the choice to opt into meat centered options. Listen to the podcast episode with their Katie Cantrell.
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