Helsinki bets on vegetarian catering
Helsinki's city hall will henceforth serve vegetarian dishes, oat milk, and fair-trade coffee. The capital is committing to climate-friendly nutrition.
Vegetarian dishes, oat milk instead of cow's milk, fair-trade coffee: Helsinki's city hall is committing to climate-friendly food from now on.
No more meat at events
For the sake of the climate, Helsinki's city hall intends to stop serving meat at seminars, staff meetings, receptions, and other events. To reduce the CO2 footprint of the Finnish capital, vegetarian dishes and locally sourced fish from sustainable aquaculture will be offered from January, said the city administration's communications director, Liisa Kivelä. Schools and canteens operated by the city are exempt from the change to the menu.
For certain high-ranking visits or similar events organised by Mayor Juhana Vartiainen or top officials, exceptions to the rule would also be possible. It will also be mandatory in future that coffee, tea, or food items such as bananas offered at relevant events must come from fair-trade sources. Oat milk will replace conventional milk, and snacks and drinks may no longer be served in single-use packaging.
Meat consumption in Finland on the decline
The city administration stated that the measure is part of large-scale efforts aimed at reducing the climate impact of food and diminishing the extent of natural resources used by the city.
According to the Finnish Natural Resources Institute, however, meat consumption in the country of around 5.5 million inhabitants has fallen for two consecutive years. More and more people are turning to plant-based alternatives.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
