Q&A: Annette Pinner

Published on Sunday 7 September 2008 22:20

Chief executive of the Vegetarian Society, on climate change expert Dr Rajendra Pachauri's call for people to abandon meat to help save the environment.

Can people really make a difference by changing their eating habits?

What we choose to eat is one of the biggest factors in the personal impact we have on the environment. A recent study showed plant-based diets were better for the environment than those based on meat. A vegan, organic diet had the smallest environmental impact, but the single most damaging foodstuff was beef and all non-vegetarian diets required significantly greater amounts of resources, such as land and water. By feeding grain and vegetables directly to people (rather than livestock) we can increase the amount of food available to everyone.

Have the issues raised by Dr Pachauri been on your agenda for some time?

In the 1980s we produced a film which the Vegetarian Society's patron Sir Paul McCartney narrated, highlighting the environmental damage that our increasing desire to eat meat was causing. More recently, in September 2007, we launched our Silent But Deadly campaign, which highlighted the statistic that damaging gaseous emissions from farmed animals exceed those of the world's entire transport system.

Is there still ignorance among the general public about the environmental cost of many products sold in supermarkets?

We conducted research this year which found that seven in ten people wrongly identify planes, trains and cars as the biggest contributors to global warming.