WeWork, an office space membership company that's taken the sector by storm, has banned meat from its menus.
What it means: WeWork brings politics into their business quite a bit. They employed 1,500 refugee workers a few months ago, and provided free office space for veterans with start-up ideas.
But this move is different. As of last Friday, none of WeWork's events or office kiosks will serve meat, and none of their employees will be able to claim back meals containing it.
Reducing meat intake is the single easiest way to lower your carbon footprint, as confirmed by Science journal in a recent report. Based on a five year projection of employee and member growth, the company says this'll save 15,507,103 animals and 16.6 million gallons of water.
It throws up a bunch of questions. WeWork's power as a food supplier, and its financial power over employees, gives them the ability to make changes on a scale that has a significant environmental impact – you know, that whole idea of helping save the planet from environmental destruction and leaving it in a passable state for future generations.
But it's also tying up work with political views, creating a situation where someone who's just there to do their job now has to adhere to a viewpoint they might not agree with so as to be part of that workplace.
(As a side note: they've not actually banned fish, eggs, or dairy, all of which have a huge environmental impact too – perhaps because they didn't want even more backlash to the whole idea, but it's worth flagging anyway).
Read the full story: Bloomberg
