Mouans-Sartoux, France
First Mover!*
First Movers are cities, local governments, or public institutions (like universities, schools or hospitals) that have at least one meal per week that is completely dedicated to vegetarian foods. This is often alongside other great programs like public education and organic sourcing, but the main criteria is having at least one dedicated vegetarian meal or day per week.
Gilles Pérole, the deputy mayor of this small French town, is a tireless advocate for sustainable food. With his leadership, the French town has been serving 100% organic meals in its primary schools since 2012. And the schools have been offering meals based on vegetable proteins once a week since 2017. Not only that, but all of the meals are home-made, and 85% of the vegetables come from the municipal vegetable garden!
Parents and students overwhelmingly approve of these changes, with a 99% of parents saying they are satisfied and 97.5% of children. The students eat such creative meals as lentil lasagna and Thai rice salad, widening their culinary horizons as well!
What’s next?
With these moves so popular, the obvious next step is to institute one more “vegetable protein” day per week by 2020.
Greenpeace’s global challenge:
Our supporters are challenging cities to race to the top on meat reduction to protect our climate, forests, and water. We aim to have at least 50 cities commit to serving two vegetarian meals (no meat or dairy options) in all public canteens weekly by the end of 2019. We expect to have at least 100 global cities make this or a greater commitment toward less and better meat and more plant-rich meals by 2020.