Sustainability needs to throw the best party

A strong belief guiding me throughout my career is that nature and climate will only win if we are throwing "the best party". This means our story can not be the story of abandonment and sacrifices, but of joy and delight. I reject the narrative that doing good equals no flying, no meat, no fun. This mindset divides us, stifles creativity and innovation for a sustainable future, and benefits only those who want to maintain the status quo.

Nowhere is this more true than for food. We won’t challenge factory farming unless meat alternatives are tasty, and allow us to honour our social and culinary traditions.

So, I sketched out a near-future “day in my life” from a delicious food perspective!

A better food diary

Breakfast: I wake myself up with a delicious plant-based latte - complete with the perfect foam, of course. It’s healthier than cow’s milk, thanks to the lower sugar content, and it’s tastier - the children choose it over cow’s milk for their breakfast cereals. It’s hard to believe now that cow’s milk used to be our default.

I pack the kids' lunch boxes with vegan mortadella from Rügenwalder Mühle, a German family meat company now earning over 50% of its revenue from plant-based products—a testament to successful diversification and transformation of a business.

We bike to school and work, and as I pedal, I can’t help but think about how all these streets were once forest. What gives me a lot of hope is seeing a younger generation growing up with a very different mindset when it comes to nature, animals and the planet. My daughter’s favourite project at school is growing their own vegetables. For her it’s a given that she depends on nature and it’s not about exploiting nature, but treating it wisely.

Lunch: At lunchtime my colleagues and I take a break. Finally, we realised we don’t need to give up anything in order to have healthy and delicious food! I have fresh veggies, salad, and protein from a grilled plant-based “chicken” fillet. As alternative proteins have advanced over the years, the taste and texture are the real thing, no chicken required! Do you remember the old days of food coma after a huge pasta lunch? OMG! Today my bowl gives me the energy it needs to run my company, Nala, for the rest of the day. With Nala we’re making nature measurable for big business, and it pleases me that the food I power myself with is part of the same solution for nature.

Dinner: I leave work early for a family birthday dinner. As a special treat, tonight we will eat cow meat, sourced from Lutz, a farmer in a small village between Berlin and Hamburg.

Lutz, a pioneer of organic farming for 30 years, has a deep connection to his land. As alternative proteins have captured more of the market, more land has become available for nature-friendly farming, in place of intensive animal agriculture. His cattle roam year-round on grasslands fed by a river. Once limited to monoculture, this land—formerly dedicated to growing livestock feed—has transformed into a vibrant, biodiverse ecosystem. With ample space to roam, the cattle contribute to the health of their environment rather than depleting it. Their grazing fertilises the soil, sustaining a thriving life-cycle of plants, insects, and birds.

Lutz is licensed to shoot on the farm. I’ve witnessed this — slaughter is instantaneous, and the rest of the herd only momentarily pause before calmly resuming their grazing. Top restaurants seek out this meat, for the rich texture and flavour that comes from animals free of fear and adrenaline. Such is the special treat for our celebratory dinner!

When I go to bed, I reflect on how nice it is to know that I’m not missing anything while ensuring my lifestyle is in line with the natural boundaries of our planet. I am grateful that for my kids this will be the norm. For me personally, it requires being open—to new products, new insights, and occasionally questioning my habits. The good news is that this not only keeps the body healthy but also keeps the brain young!

Why I donate to alternative proteins

How do plant-based and cultivated meat fit into the complex fabric of our food system, though? Let’s touch on some stats. . The School of Moral Ambition gives us the full "Why?" in this article, but in brief:

1. Land:  45% of habitable land is now farmland, with devastating consequences for natural habitats. Four-fifths of this land is used for livestock and animal feed, yet it produces only 17% of our food, as animals require much more land than plants. Alternative proteins use up to 90% less land, opening an opportunity for land to be restored to nature, or farmed in less intensive and damaging ways
2. Climate: meat and dairy are incontrovertibly driving climate change. The food system accounts for over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than half of which is attributable to livestock and feed. It’s simply impossible to hit net zero by 2050 without changing how we produce food, even if we eliminate fossil fuels. Plant-based and cultivated meat reduce emissions by over 90%
3. Animals: factory farming leads to many millions of animals a year suffering inhumane conditions throughout their short lives. The sheer volume of low-cost meat the world consumes is what drives such conditions. Existing alternatives such as regenerative livestock farming are promising as they are more humane, but because they have lower yields and need more land, they cannot, alone, meet demand

Plant-based and cultivated meat give us the opportunity to satisfy demand while protecting the environment. Through these alternatives we do not replace livestock altogether; instead, we diversify the market, making space for more organic or regenerative farms like Lutz’s to thrive. What we need is for alternative proteins to achieve equivalence, in terms of taste and price, to conventional products in order to hit this market share and unlock these benefits.

Donating is one way we can have impact. Transforming our personal food diaries is another. What will be your answer, when the younger generation asks  you what you have done when climate and nature started to collapse?

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.