Vegan businesswoman and athlete Heather Mills has offered to donate at least 1,000 plant-based burgers to Goldsmiths University.

The London university recently announced plans to ban the sale of beef on campus as part of a slew of initiatives aimed at making the institution carbon neutral by 2025. These include phasing out single-use plastics and installing more solar panels. The ban follows the 2018 publication of an Oxford University study that suggested eating a vegan diet is the 'single biggest way' individuals can reduce their environmental impact.

Now Mills wants to help students and staff change the way they eat by giving the institution her VBites burgers made in her plant-based food factories in the North East. 

Goldsmiths beef ban

Professor Frances Corner is the new Warden of Goldsmiths. She ordered the beef ban, saying: "The growing global call for organizations to take seriously their responsibilities for halting climate change is impossible to ignore."

She added that staff and students at the university 'care passionately about the future of our environment' and are determined to take action.

"Declaring a climate emergency cannot be empty words," she continued. "I truly believe we face a defining moment in global history and Goldsmiths now stands shoulder to shoulder with other organisations willing to call the alarm and take urgent action to cut carbon use."

'Action is needed'

"I totally applaud this inspirational move by Professor Corner and I completely support her stand," Mills said in a statement sent to Plant Based News. "She is absolutely right, empty words will not tackle the climate emergency, action is what is needed, and I have been saying this for 20 years.

"That's why I am prepared to donate at least 1,000 vegan burgers in order to help students and staff at Goldsmiths ease into a plant-based way of eating which is so much less damaging to the planet. 

"The meat-eaters at Goldsmiths won't miss their beef because these British-made vegan burgers taste so much like meat that in America, the very home of the big meat-eaters, where we've been taste-testing them this summer, they have consistently scored 10 out of 10 against alternatives."


Originally posted at Plant Based News by Maria Chiorando