You are what you eat, as the saying goes. But what you eat can also give you a whopping carbon footprint. To promote awareness of the harmful effects on the environment of farming animals for food, IFT has been supporting the Green Monday movement for more than 3 years.
A non-profit social enterprise started the Green Monday movement in Hong Kong in 2012. Green Monday promotes the consumption of healthier food generally and specifically urges people to eat only a vegetarian diet every Monday. IFT joined the movement in December 2013.
Green Monday sets out neither to turn people into vegetarians, nor to change their way of life, nor to make them sacrifice their valuable time. It sets out simply to teach people how they can shrink their carbon footprint and improve their health simply and effectively, with only a small change in their routine.
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says raising livestock for food generates more emissions of greenhouse gases, measured by their equivalent in carbon dioxide, than transport. Raising livestock for food is also an important cause of the degradation of land and sources of water, the report says.
Live sustainably
As an institution of higher education that endeavours to act responsibly with respect to the environment, IFT aims to teach the younger generation to live their lives in a manner the environment can sustain. Every Monday, the Windows Cafeteria at the Mong-Há Campus serves vegetarian dishes to students and staff willing to support the Green Monday movement.
IFT engages in a string of other activities meant to promote healthy lifestyles and reduce waste. The IFT Drama Club regularly performs plays that convey the message to waste less food. The Windows Cafeteria displays figures for the amount of food wasted there each day, with a view to persuading its customers to refrain from taking more food than they need. The Institute recycles waste food, turning it into fertiliser for the grounds of its campuses.
IFT takes part in community events held every year to make people more aware of the need to protect the environment. The events include the Macao version of the global Earth Hour campaign, which calls for inessential lights to be extinguished for an unbroken 60 minutes every year. The Institute also holds a No Elevator Day, prompting students and staff to take the stairs instead of using the lifts, with the purpose of making them better aware of the need to save energy.
