Impossible Foods has accepted the Planetary Health award from the UN this Tuesday for raising awareness of the impact of food production on the planet and helping to inform the public about the possibilities of plant-based meat in cutting emissions.
The UN said that the ceremony takes place as part of a “wider effort to mobilize action and ambition as national governments work toward implementing the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.”
“With solutions like the Impossible Burger, consumers can drive the movement to create a food system consistent with the urgent goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Jessica Appelgren, vice president of communications for Impossible Foods.
At the COP25 in Madrid, the UN hosted an event with Impossible Foods and youth activists titled, “What do we owe future generations?” – where Impossible Foods founder and CEO Patrick Brown joined youth activists calling to accelerate the transition to a sustainable food system.
Raising animals for food overwhelmingly dominates the humanity’s land footprint. All the buildings, roads and paved surfaces in the world occupy less than 1% of Earth’s land surface, while 45% of the land surface of Earth is currently in use as land for grazing or growing feed crops for livestock. The global demand for meat, fish and dairy foods is a primary driver of the catastrophic collapse in diverse wildlife populations and ecosystems on land and in oceans, rivers and lakes.
“Unless we act quickly to reduce or eliminate the use of animals in the food system, we are racing toward ecological disaster,” said Impossible Foods’ CEO and Founder Dr. Patrick O. Brown. “But I’m hopeful because younger generations are quickly discovering that ‘meat is heat,’ and they are uniquely poised to turn us away from the brink of catastrophe.”
