How can UMass mitigate red meat consumption and advocate for less red meat consumption?

In an ever adapting world, humanity faces its greatest challenge yet. Climate change is expected to impact every form of life on earth at a rapidly growing pace in the near century. As a primarily human derived issue, our quest for a more sustainable future starts with our individual habits as people. What we consume and how we consume it is ultimately the driver of this problem. As a major contributor to climate change and other environmental issues, the meat industry is one we currently rely on as a society. Specifically, red meat consumption uses more essential resources like land, water, and energy and emits more harmful byproducts like greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide than any other type of meat. Our goal is to tackle the issue of meat consumption by bringing it to our home front at UMass Amherst. Through carefully analyzing ​what we consume, why we consume it, and what we know surrounding the issue of meat consumption​ ​as a community at UMass​, we can build a foundation to ultimately prove or disprove our team’s hypothesis: If the UMass community were more aware of the effects of the production and consumption of red meat, then people would be more inclined to change or limit their red meat consumption habits.

In our first survey, we will ask UMass community diners about their habits concerning red meat and what they already know about the subject. After four weeks of an information campaign, there will be a second survey asking the same questions and some more about how their consumption habits have changed. Using the responses to the first and second survey, we will compare the answers and see how the responses have changed to determine if informing a young community is an effective tool in inspiring change.