The EU-funded Smart Protein project has published a briefing document outlining the measures the EU needs to adopt to shift more Europeans to a plant-based diet.
The measures include labelling food products to show sustainability, such as their carbon footprint, water usage and transport miles, and encouraging more EU countries to remove the VAT on fruit and vegetables. Currently, only four EU member states have a zero percent rate.
Other policy tools outlined in the “Smart Protein Policy Brief” include promoting plant-based foods in public institutions, such as schools, hospitals and local government buildings.
“Animal agriculture is responsible for about 17 percent of carbon emissions in the EU, so the EU must focus on implementing policies that promote more climate-friendly food,” said Juliette Tronchon, ProVeg International’s Senior Policy and Public Affairs Specialist and co-author of the report.
“Animal agriculture also contributes to lifestyle diseases, global hunger, and animal suffering, so replacing animal products with plant-based and cultivated foods offers the EU a multi-pronged solution to these problems.”
ProVeg International is one of 33 partners in the Smart Protein project drawn from industry, research and academia.
In addition, alternative proteins lose out where research is concerned. The €32 million funding earmarked for the sustainable protein under the EU’s Horizon Europe programme is only a fraction of the budget of €95.5 billion.
Promoting plant-based foods is also an issue that needs to be addressed in the EU.
“Where the EU’s agriculture promotion policy is concerned, healthy, plant-based alternative products are barely mentioned, whereas the livestock sector, with its’ high carbon emissions, high water usage and pollution of waterways, is funded,” said Falk Hemsing, International Policy Officer at ProVeg and co-author of the report.
The report calls on the European Commission to progress on policies covering four key areas, labelling and marketing, public food procurement, VAT rates and subsidies.
Cindy Schoumacher, Policy Officer at the European Commission DG Research and Innovation, said that as seen in the Farm to Fork Strategy, alternative proteins, such as plant, microbial, or marine proteins, were one of the critical areas of research for a sustainable, healthy and inclusive food system.
Schoumacher continued that the aim was to stimulate sustainable food consumption in health and environmental aspects, highlighting the importance of plant-based diets. Smart Protein provides essential information to fill knowledge gaps on alternative proteins and contribute to achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal.
