- [Narrator] This week five-time Formula One racing champion
Lewis Hamilton launches a vegan burger chain.
Meat consumption is down 20% in Europe.
Another vegan meat brand
might follow Beyond Meat and go public,
and find out how animal testing and trophy hunting
could soon become illegal in the U.K.
All that and more on Live Kindly's Weekly Vegan News.
Five-time Formula One race car driver Lewis Hamilton
launched a vegan burger chain.
The vegan athlete announced Neat Burger,
an international vegan burger restaurant, in late August.
Beyond burgers and Violife cheese is on the menu,
dressed up as vegan versions
of fast food classics like the Big Mac.
"I'm very passionate about being kinder to our world,
"and also really respect Neat Burger's commitment
"to more ethical practices and supporting small businesses.
"So this is something I'm also really proud to support,"
Hamilton said.
The first location opened in London on September 2nd
and sold out in less than two hours.
According to co-founder Ryan Bishti,
Neat Burger's expansion will be quick.
14 locations will open in the U.K.
spanning London, Manchester, Brighton,
Bristol, and Edinburgh.
New York City will follow.
Bishti plans to open at least a hundred restaurants
by 2025.
"We'll be on every continent," the entrepreneur said.
"We've had interest from all over,
"and we're about to sign a major partnership
"with a high profile drinks brand.
"Expansion is going to be fast.
"To begin with, in the U.K.
"we're concentrating on major cities.
"You could say we're aiming
"to be the vegan Five Guys, yes."
Finland urged the U.K. to ban Brazilian beef.
The Northern European nation holds the presidency
of the Council of the European Union.
The presidency's role, which rotates among member states,
is to chair meetings of the council, decide on its agendas,
implement a work program,
and encourage discussions between EU institutions.
Finance Minister, Mika Lintila
condemns the destruction of Amazon rainforests,
and suggests that the E.U. and Finland
should urgently review the possibility
of banning Brazilian beef imports.
Brazil is one of the world's top beef producers.
Lintila added that he will raise the issue
with the E.U.'s Finance Ministry this month
if no progress is made.
The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest.
It covers an area of 5.5 million square kilometers,
has been ablaze for more than three weeks.
Destroying the rain forest
not only strips the oxygen source from the planet,
but also releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The fires are said to have started
by intentional land clearing by the beef industry.
80% of deforestation in the Amazon is for beef production.
Novelist John Green spoke up about the impact
of the Amazon fires.
- [John] Fire is not a natural part of the ecosystem,
and because of that,
many trees in the rainforest can't survive
what we would, in the U.S. consider a trivial burn.
- [Narrator] The Amazon fires
have captured the attention of the world,
including Leonardo DiCaprio
and reality TV star, Khloe Kardashian,
who asked her 98 million Instagram followers to ditch beef.
Coming up:
San Francisco's airport bans plastic water bottles.
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Porsche's 2020 Taycan has a vegan leather interior option.
The luxury brand's new electric car
offers Race Tech's microfiber,
a vegan leather partly made from recycled polyester fibers.
The cruelty free leather generates 80% less CO2
than it's animal based counterpart, according to Porsche.
The Taycan's flooring is made from econyl,
a fiber made from recycled fishing nets.
Offering a vegan interior follows the lead of Tesla,
which removed all leather seating options in 2016.
The electric car company announced that its Model 3
is now completely vegan,
following up on a promise made by CEO Elon Musk
at a shareholders' meeting last June.
The only non-vegan component of the car
was the heated steering wheel.
Musk explained the struggle
with making the steering wheel vegan.
"I believe we were close
"to having a non-heated steering wheel that's not leather.
"There are some challenges
"when heating the non-leather material,
"and also how well it wears over time."
Musk noted earlier this year
that the Model Y may also be vegan by 2020.
San Francisco International Airport
banned single use plastic water bottles.
- SFO is no stranger to sustainability.
It's installed solar panels and xeriscape,
but now the airport is taking it one step further.
If you fly through SFO starting August 20th,
you may want to bring your own reusable water bottle.
- [Narrator] Restaurants, kiosks,
shops, and vending machines will now sell bottles
made from more sustainable materials
like aluminum, glass, and certified compostable materials.
It won't be enough for water to be labeled eco-friendly
or sustainable.
Anything up for consideration
will be thoroughly investigated
by The Biodegradable Products Institute.
The move is part of SFO's five-year strategic plan,
launched in 2016
to become a zero waste to landfill airport by 2021.
Nearly a hundred water filling stations
launched ahead of the plastic bottle ban announcement.
Restaurants may give customers single use items,
such as condiment packets, only by request.
Single use plastic water bottles are recyclable,
but whether they end up in the right bin is another story.
A Guardian investigation last June
revealed that only 9% of plastics in the U.S. are recycled.
More than 70% of America's plastic waste,
the equivalent of 68,000 shipping containers,
is exported to poorer countries to be processed each year,
but those countries may implement bans
on foreign trash in the coming years.
The change highlights the need for Western countries
to move away from single use plastic bottles.
The airport hopes its move towards sustainable materials
sets an example for water brands.
Meat consumption dropped 20% in Europe in just three months.
A representative of New Zealand's red meat sector
addressed the decline while visiting London ahead of Brexit,
the U.K.'s exit from the EU, on October 31st.
- Consumption in meat has dropped by about 20%
in both continental Europe and in the U.K.
over the last two to three months.
- [Narrator] The representative named changing attitudes
surrounding meat as the biggest issue in front of us.
He noted that Europeans are motivated
to do their part for the environment by ditching meat.
An increasing number of consumers
are choosing to adopt flexitarian lifestyles,
significantly reducing their meat consumption.
Research from U.K. supermarket chain Sainsbury's
notes that 91% of it's U.K. consumers
now identify as flexitarian.
An increasing body of research,
such as the largest ever food production analysis,
suggests that a vegan diet is the most effective way
to reduce one's carbon footprint.
"It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights
"or buying an electric car,"
said Oxford University researcher, Joseph Poor.
- And we wanted to try and understand
how could we find solutions to agriculture
that represented the complexity of this sector.
- [Narrator] Agriculture is a sector
that spans all the multitude of environmental problems.
Really, it is animal products
that are responsible for so much of this.
Coming up, Sir David Attenborough's latest documentary
will make you consider becoming an environmentalist.
MorningStar Farms might be the next vegan meat brand
to go public.
- [Announcer] Carolina thinks plants are delicious
when they taste like chicken.
- Nuggets!
- [Narrator] The Kellogg-owned company
is the largest meat-free brand in the United States,
and it may have its own IPO,
according to financial analysts at The Motley Fool.
It says, "Watch Kellogg's stock in the future."
Thanks to British politics, reinvestment,
and a changing product range,
the company could show healthy earnings
over the next few years.
A potential IPO for it's MorningStar brands
could drum up even more excitement.
MorningStar Farms would follow in the footsteps
of California-based Beyond Meat.
The plant based meat brand went public earlier this year,
resulting in the biggest first day IPO
in nearly two decades.
According to CNBC, Beyond Meat's IPO
left every other debut in the dust.
MorningStar Farms is eager to keep up
with the $4.5 billion vegan food market.
The vegetarian brand announced earlier this year
that it would remove egg whites from its products,
making its line completely plant based.
It has also launched a new range of vegan meat
called Incogmeato.
The brand wrote across its social media channels,
"When it looks like meat and tastes like meat,
"it's not meat incognito, it's Incogmeato."
Find it in your local fridge in 2020.
The range includes burgers, chicken tenders, and nuggets.
Sir David Attenborough's documentary,
"Climate Change - The Facts"
will make you consider becoming an environmentalist.
- Standing here in the English countryside,
it may not seem obvious,
but we are facing a man-made disaster
on a global scale.
The film carefully examines
the science behind climate change.
It features individual stories
of people already affected by the climate crisis,
and interviews with leading scientists.
The film explores the solutions that must be actioned,
both personally and globally, to prevent any further damage.
Attenborough is a natural historian, writer, and presenter,
best known for his work with the BBC's Natural History Unit,
and particularly, "The Life Collection."
In recent years, Attenborough has been increasingly vocal
about environmental concerns.
- One of the things Darwin's work has taught us,
is that we break nature's connections at our peril.
Yet, break them we do, at ever-greater speed.
- [Narrator] And his recent Netflix documentary,
"Our Planet," also explored climate change
and its affects on the natural world.
"Because it costs money, in realistic terms,
"dealing with these problems
"mean we have to change our lifestyles.
"We cannot be radical enough in dealing with these issues,"
Attenborough said.
Animal testing and trophy hunting
may soon be banned in the U.K.
The Labour Party introduced its new Animal Welfare Manfesto,
which outlines potential animal welfare policies.
As well as phasing out animal testing,
the party would ban trophy hunting imports,
the sale of snares and glue traps,
and electric pulse fishing.
It would also commit to preventing the return
of commercial whaling.
Keeping primates like chimps as pets would be banned,
and the use of whips in horse races would be reviewed.
Wild animals would also be included
under animal cruelty laws,
which currently only applies to pets.
The Labour Party worked with party members,
the general public, and animal rights organizations
to come up with its new 50 point Manifesto.
That's it for today.
What do you think about the Labour Party's proposition?
Do you think MorningStar Farms will go public?
Let us know in the comments.
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for Live Kindly's Weekly Vegan News.