The leading vegan campaign and social venture group in Asia, Green Monday, has announced a multi-faceted media partnership with LIVEKINDLY, kicking off this spring.
Green Monday, which is similar to the successful Meatless Monday campaign in the U.S. and Europe, aims to help the Asian community embrace plant-based meals at least one day a week for their health and the health of the planet.
“By extending their reach to Asia, we trust that LIVEKINDLY will play an instrumental role in synchronizing the global attitude and behavior change towards living kindly, healthily, sustainably, and peacefully,” says David Yeung, the program’s co-founder.
Prior to establishing Green Monday in 2012, Yeung says much of Asia was unaware of the issues with livestock production and the industry’s impact on the climate; China currently consumes more meat than any country in the world — about twice that of the U.S. Yeung notes that Green Monday is the one-plant-based-day-a-week campaign that provides “the common platform that governments, corporations, schools and individuals feel connected and empowered to join.”
And it’s working. Within just a few years, the campaign has mobilized more than 1.6 million people in Hong Kong to consciously reduce meat consumption, Yeung says.
While vegetarianism has long been viewed in Asia as strictly a part of Buddhism, the diet has become significantly more mainstream, thanks in large part to Green Monday.
“The relationship that people have with food is profound and complex,” Yeung notes.
Yeung says a multitude of factors, namely: culture, habit, impulse, emotion, convenience, and value led to the creation of the Green Monday campaign, something he calls the “Swiss Army Knife” of the plant-based movement in Asia.
Yeung is also the co-founder of the Hong-Kong-based market and restaurant chain, Green Common, which he says aims to make green choices “common,” providing the community with the “how” of adopting a plant-based diet and lifestyle through its six locations. The chain highlights local brands as well as innovative food companies from the US. JUST (formerly Hampton Creek) and Beyond Meat are two big names in vegan food tech now served on the Green Common menus. And the company also has its own food innovation arm working to create foods that appeal to Asian cooking methods and palettes.
“I’m thrilled to be working with the team at Green Monday and look forward to bringing international exposure to the vegan movement David is spearheading throughout Hong Kong and South East Asia,” says Jodi Monelle, LIVEKINDLY’s founder and CEO. “Our platform reaches millions of individuals from across the globe each week and our goal is to empower our readers through positive news about campaigns just like this.”
“The scale of meat consumption across many Asian countries is high, and drastically affecting our planet’s natural resources, our personal health and the lives of billions of sentient beings,” Monelle adds. “I hope that our partnership will play a role in solving these issues by helping Asia to buck the trend of Western eating habits.”
With this new partnership, LIVEKINDLY readers can expect exclusive insights into Asia’s nascent vegan movement as it develops. First up: The Future of GREENovation Forum comes to Hong Kong next month. Stay tuned!
