The Plant-Based Universities Petition: Play Your Part for Our Planet

As of 2025, with warming at 1.4°C above pre-industrial levels, the first irreversible global tipping points have been passed; coral reefs are now facing unprecedented dieback, and polar ice sheets are on a trajectory towards extensive melt, having exceeded their thermal tolerance [1]. As of January 20th, 2026, DEFRA has released an eye-opening report revealing that 3 ecosystems critical to national and international security will start collapsing from 2050, and 3 others as early as 2030. This biodiversity loss will change global weather patterns, cause population displacement, and increase resource scarcity and subsequent geopolitical competition [2].

The magnitude of the challenges facing humanity (which includes you, by the way) are overwhelmingly vast, so it becomes easy to ignore the issue in an attempt to maintain sanity. Spoilers: this sanity will be short-lived if we keep expecting others to think about the problem; the climate is changing and its cruel consequences will compromise the lives and livelihoods of current and future generations in the coming decades.

You may feel helpless. At a loss for what to do. You want to contribute, but don’t know where to start. Enter: Plant Based Universities (PBU). They are a student-led organisation, with over 80 campaigns across the UK and Europe striving to transition Universities, which are powerhouses in systemic change, to plant-based catering systems.

This recent DEFRA report noted that food production is the most significant cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss [2]. Dominating this is the livestock sector, where 67% of agriculturally-driven deforestation is for growing animal feed [3]; given that the animals fed on this only provide around a third of our protein and a fifth of our calories [3], plant-based food systems seem far more efficient and sustainable. There is considerable potential for re-claiming land for nature with the global adoption of predominantly plant-based diets as they use only a quarter of the land of meat-heavy diets [4]. This re-wilded land would directly contribute to CO2 uptake and biodiversity restoration.

In terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the difference between plant and animal-based diets is even more extreme. For example, emissions for animal feed exceed emissions for human-quality vegetable protein farming, whilst adding on enteric fermentation and manure from livestock means plant-based diets produce only 25% of GHG emissions of meat-eaters [4]. Consider cattle: the highest-impact beef producers emit 12 times more CO2 equivalents than dairy-cow producers, who emit 36 times more CO2 equivalents than low-impact pea producers [3].

Yet, if plant-based diets became the globally adopted norm, land use for food could reduce by 76%, GHG emissions could reduce by a half and the land saved from being used in animal agriculture could sequester 8.1 billion tons of CO2 each year [3]. That is almost double of the USA’s 2024 CO2 emissions [5]!

Additionally, plant-based diets could reduce premature mortality from air pollution globally [6], and improve the health of individuals in a host of other ways [6, 7]. The British and American dietetic associations have both determined that a plant-based diet is healthy for all stages of life, including infancy, childhood, adolescence, pregnancy, and supports athletic performance [7,8].They can also improve the health of individuals in a host of other ways [6, 7].

“From tiny seeds grow mighty trees”: this is the philosophy behind PBUs, and they are asking for your support. They are asking for you to unite for institutional change, and help guide us towards a more sustainable future. On Monday 2nd February, PBU Southampton released a Student’s Union petition calling on SUSU and the University to transition to plant-based catering by default. This means that there will be a plant-based version of each animal-based item on menus with the plant-based option being the default option. As a result, students would have the opportunity to choose more sustainable meals.

By signing the petition, we get one step closer to joining the 23 universities globally which are committed to playing their part for our planet, and one step closer to a stable and just future for all life on Earth.

To sign, please follow the link below. This will take you to the SUSU petitions page which will have the PBU open petition listed:

https://www.susu.org/petition/