All data points to the proven environmental benefits of not breeding-not consuming animal products. Water is far too precious and getting too rare for that! In fact many municipal administrations are increasingly encouraging citizens to promote organic farming and switch adopt a vegan diet (for example, in Belgium the City of Ghent, begins with a meat-ban everywhere in town (yes, in restaurant, univ campus and school cafeterias) held every Thursday. Tracking software can help the City of Vancouver calculate the carbon offset that such a measure, times 2 or 3 days a week would generate (as revenue too!) for Vancouver and its residents!

Please help to encourage our fellow citizens to eat Vegan. It is the only way to be green without being Hippocratic

If United Nations says so, we'd better do it.

Factory farming industry is the most energy consuming one. From slaughtering the Amazon forest to clearing land for grazing and feedcrops, to transportating the final frozen products to the consumer's place, it takes huge amount of resources from the planet Earth. So if we would like to be a green city, we have to go vegan.

Vancouver - the greenest city in 2020. Wonderful idea and I love to see that happen sooner. We must be vegan to reach the goal and there really isn't any other option. Let's be vegan and even better be organic vegan. Please encourage citizens to be vegan and support organic farming. Thank you!

I strongly support more vegan options for all! Making these options convenient will encourage others to incorporate more vegan items into their diet. This will be better for our health, the animals and for the entire world. I am very proud to live in Vancouver where I am beginning to see more and more options including restaurants that serve meat labeling 'vegan' dishes on the menu. Go Vancouver! Go green!

In my opion,vegan diet is the effective way to become the greetest city.Because vegan diet can save a lot of resources,including water,soil,fuel,grands and livestock.I support organic agricultrue and local food.Government should encourage organic farm to save our country and planet.

Please support an organic vegan diet. To stop cruelty to animals and the destruction of our beautiful planet.

I wish that more and more vegan restaurants will open and that there will be more offers for buying vegan food.

Please go Vegan to save the animals and our beautiful planet.

Thanks~!

Be veg is the no. 1 solution to save the world.

Yea! Be vegan to save our planet!!!

Let's start this healthy and empowering initiative by encouraging Vancouver City to endorse and promote Meat Free Mondays and introduce education campaigns such as the one Cincinnati created in 2009.

Cities like Cincinati have already included meat reduction in their climate change city plans, see F1 - Reduced Meat Consumption page 209-211
http://www.ci.cincinnati.oh.us/cmgr/downloads/cmgr_pdf18280.pdf

"Strategy/action plan – A public campaign to educate Cincinnatians about the environmental (and specifically the planetary warming) consequences of meat consumption. Fight Global Warming, One Bite at a Time or Cooling the Earth... with my Fork! campaigns could adorn busses, bumper stickers, t-shirts. Great Britain's Environment Agency is developing a set of key environmental behaviour changes to mitigate global warming which include promoting vegetarianism.

There already is a movement in Europe, called Meat Reducers, by which, along side recycling and bringing your own bag shopping, people are simply eating less meat to help the environment. Mark Rosengrant, of the International Food Policy Research Institute, expects to see public relations campaigns – like that around cigarettes – focused on the reduction of meat consumption.

Accompanying the reduction in animal products will be reductions in consumption of carbohydrates and increased availability of fresh fruit and vegetables. Similar menu changes will occur at centers of detention and all City facilities. Other private captive eating institutions such as hospitals, sports facilities, restaurants etc. will be encouraged to adopt similar dietary changes. "

San Franscisco has also already beaten us to the punch! They have Meat Free Mondays.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7370993

Introducing and promoting more vegan food options embraces many of the things that Vancouverites hold dear:

1. Assists in preserving British Columbia's biodiversity and wildlife for future generations
2. Preserves our precious local water resources for human consumption rather than for raising livestock
3. Reduces BC's health care costs related to meat centered diets.
4. Supports PEACE KINDNESS and COMPASSION - in our own backyard by reducing unecessary killing.
5. Helps people recconnect with their food by learning the benefits of eating more organic fruits and vegetables, which we can learn to grow ourselves
6. Reduces obesity in children and adults
7 And so much more...

For many of the latest Scientific studies on the effects of meat production
http://suprememastertelevision.com/resources/

Resources for those wishing to explore more vegan options:

http://suprememastertelevision.com/vegetarian-resources/

Vancouver does a very good job at promoting the farmer's market/eat local/backyard chicken. How does a municipality encourage people to eat locally produced food? I think they do a pretty darn good job at it. They can do the same with encouraging people to eat low on the food chain. We can start by not giving animal agriculture the advantage. Do not allow the meat milk and egg companies to make false health claims in their advertising. Allow more education about plant based foods. Right now, most people think you need milk to get calcium when in fact it is one of the poorest sources of calcium.
All the municipality has to do is put the word out there. ENCOURAGE vegan options just like they ENCOURAGE cycling and eating local. There are so many things they can do without making private business do anything. Promote "Meatless Mondays". Label plant based foods as "low carbon foods".

check out this link...worth the read!

'10 ways vegetarianism can help save the planet'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/18/vegetarianism-save-planet-environment

I don't necessarily disagree with the objective of this idea but I'm confused about what it is, exactly, the supporters want the City of Vancouver to do? How does a municipality encourage private businesses to change their menus?

Maybe Vancouver is doing well in comparison to the majority of other cities in North America...but they don't exactly hold the bar very high. Let's see more vegan options in cafes/restaurants/school cafeterias, and more information on veganism made available to the public.
By the way, I had a vegan muffin yesterday and it tasted EXACTLY like any non-vegan muffin I've had, which is proof to me that this transition to a more ecologically responsible diet cannot be too drastic or difficult - as long as people have the information to know how to make these changes.

It sounds like Vancouver is actually doing a pretty good job with providing vegetarian and vegan options - PETA just ranked the city 6th in North America for veg-friendly living.

Let us not get too carried away with the word VEGAN either. What is more critical is LOW CARBON as in Atkins Diet. You can learn more about it by seraching for Patkins Diet which is the blueprint of a low carbon diet. If highly processed some of the vegan food items like Tofu and some animal products that "vegan" might consume e.g. cheese in place of chicken have a larger carbon or ecological footprint. The idea is to be smarter and knowledgeable about these things. Website of Vancouver Sustainability Run has it all. Goolge it please.

No one is saying you'd HAVE to eat vegan, this is just 'let there be more options.' I think the incentive for restaurants and businesses already exists - those of the populace who choose (or are by dietary necessity) to exclude meat and/or dairy from their lives would be ABLE to spend their money in the establishment. It's not rocket science that if there aren't options, money will not be spent in that business, but in another that does offer options. Spread the love, and let all come to the table to dine, not just sit and watch others. This is a way to build community and dialogue, by making it easier for everyone in a group to be accommodated, rather than excluded (regardless of their personal reasons and choices that have led them there, much like religion).

Man, this one's going to be a hard sell. Perhaps with a combination of urban agriculture, removal of meat/dairy industry subsidies, incentives to restaurants and other businesses to offer vegan options, inroads could be made. People are very sensitive about being told what (or what not to eat) and a proposal like this could jackknife the pro-sustainability movement here and elsewhere.

agreed with the above. the city needs to take more direct to provide and encourage vegan meals within city limits (ie. public/city events/meetings etc.)