MSF - OCP's Global Environmental Footprint Initiative
Building MSF OCP environmental roadmap
Going vegan is the most important thing MSF can do for the environment -Make all food provided in the field and HQs vegan.
Meat & dairy are in the top 3 most environmentally damaging industries, producing 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions & cause acidification, eutrophication & excessive water use.
-Without meat/dairy consumption, farmland could be reduced by 75% & still feed the world. Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of mass extinction.
-Human health concerns - eg antibiotic resistance from intensive farming.
-Without meat/dairy consumption, farmland could be reduced by 75% & still feed the world. Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of mass extinction.
-Human health concerns - eg antibiotic resistance from intensive farming.
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3 comments
Besides the fact that I believe it is not up to MSF to impose a specific food diet to it's employees, I don't think that the meat and dairy purchased locally in our projects come from the worst type of farming you describe. Where I've been it was usually very local and produced traditionnally rather than by carbon-intensive production means (I would assume it is the case in most places where we work). I also remember in South Sudan that the vegetables had to be FLOWN into the some of the projects from the capital because they were so scarce in some places..
So I would rather say: eat LOCAL (and stop providing Nutella for sure).
Please check the facts before making assumptions. 99% of animal and dairy products globally come from intensive farming. S. Sudan is a very specific context and is not globally representative. Plus I'm sure all the meat consumed was not produced by the farmer next door. In Liberia we had fruit/veg from the local market and meat and dairy from the middle-east/Europe.
While eating locally is of course the ideal, meat produced still has a much higher impact on the environment than fruit/vegetables/other plant foods produced further afield. Plant foods are more efficient to produce (you don’t need to feed them plants!), so they go further, feeding considerably more people than meat and dairy foods. So what you eat matters far more than where it comes from.
References because the above points are based on scientific research:
-https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food
-https://viva.org.uk/planet/the-issues/food-miles/
-https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
-https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18546681/
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