
WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat - postit
http://time.com/5338287/wework-meat-vegetarian-company-environment/
======
kozikow
I and a few of my past co-workers have been suspecting that the facilities
team in a big tech company I used to work for had an evil genius plan to
reduce costs:

1\. Pick the most popular snack (e.g. nachos)

2\. Replace it with less tasty alternative (e.g. kale chips) "for your health"

3\. Consumption is a few times smaller

4\. The company can claim they take better care of their workers and no one
can accuse them of being stingy

5\. Finance team high-fives each other

~~~
pera
That could easily backfire though (healthier chips are usually much more
expensive), specially because kale chips are delicious :)

~~~
lylecubed
> specially because kale chips are delicious :)

This is OT, but I'm curious: what do kale chips taste like to you? A little
sweet? To me, they taste like lemon rind without the "lemony" taste. Just pure
bitterness.

~~~
pera
I guess there are many variants of kale chips, but never tried one that tasted
particularly "lemony". They are indeed a bit bitter, but the ones I buy are
mostly a fried _something_ with lots of salt (yeah, like pretty much all
chips). I do like its texture and more earthy/complex flavor, which I
generally find more interesting than potato or tortilla chips alone.

------
kyledrake
I can't eat a lot of types of food due to allergies. Meat is one of the few
things I still can eat without issue. Yes, there are actually people out there
(hi, me!) that actually cannot eliminate certain foods from our diets without
getting sick. This policy would prevent me from being able to work at that
company, for recognized medical health reasons, because I would not be able to
do legitimate expenses of food related to travel, nor would I be able to eat
probably anything during the "summer camp".

I also have serious concerns about letting companies have moral opinions about
paying for choices you make for your own health, for example with health
insurance, and considering the current supreme court situation, maybe you
should too.

~~~
downandout
Not only is it terrible from a dietary standpoint, it reveals an intolerant
workplace culture that I certainly wouldn't want any part of. Most of the
world, and likely most of their employees, eat meat. It shows a serious lack
of connection with the real world, and a willingness on the part of management
to forcefully impose extreme views on a whim.

Sounds like an unhealthy place to work, even if they all become vegetarians.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Love your profile message, you pretty much nailed what's going on with HN.
Just keep posting, it's the only way to improve things.

~~~
downandout
It’s definitely getting more and more extreme around here. The fact that this
article made it to the front page, and is generally being viewed as a good
thing in the comments section, doesn’t say good things about where HN is
headed.

~~~
teaneedz
Actually you should expect the trend to continue. More consumers are demanding
vegetarian and vegan options. Restaurants are selling out of new plant-based
burgers and are being encouraged by industry magazines to offer vegan options.
Demand is speaking pretty clearly in fact. What was once fringe is rapidly
scaling. Nice to actually see the world moving forward in a good direction on
this.

~~~
downandout
I wasn’t just talking about the whole vegetarian thing. I was talking about
the idea that the HN community would be in support of any extreme idea like
this. If you look at Twitter, for example, almost everyone that commented on
this issue thought it was absolutely absurd. Yet here is HN, mostly supporting
it, simply because it’s left-leaning. It shows how out-of-touch HN is with the
rest of the world. No wonder people are starting to block access to their
articles when HN is the referrer [1].

[1] [https://jamie.build/how-to-build-an-npm-worm](https://jamie.build/how-to-
build-an-npm-worm)

~~~
detaro
Are we reading the same comment section? Because I do not see "mostly
supporting it", but lots of people arguing on both sides.

Just as I can find both people supporting it and people thinking its stupid on
Twitter when randomly looking around. The "real world" doesn't appear to have
a consistent opinion on this, which isn't surprising at all.

------
prepend
It’s nice that companies are releasing these types of policies publicly so
peopl can choose whether to work there. It’s sometimes hard to get a good bead
in company culture due to reporting bias of people there or who left. Stuff
like this will help companies and workers find each other.

I worked for a company for a while before I learned their expense policy was
really frustrating. $40 max expenses and their headquarters and work location
was on Spear Street in San Francisco. They also wouldn’t allow any alcohol and
required receipts for any expense. It wasn’t so onerous to make me quit, but
it was annoying and kind of indicative of their philosophy on cost cutting.

Had I known about this it would have changed the weighting on some other
offers I didn’t take.

~~~
watwut
You expect the company to pay for your drinks? That sounds ridiculous to me
and I am no abstinent.

~~~
prepend
My last firm did, but no, I don’t. But if I have a beer with dinner while
traveling for work, yes, of course. My current employer has a per diem and
doesn’t care.

------
mreome
While I don't think this "forces" a vegetarian diet on the employees, it is
placing the employees in a situation where their company is promoting a
particular ideology/lifestyle/diet through financial motivation. Dining is
generally reimbursed during business travel due to the (often significant)
increased cost of having to exclusively dine out, so the option for the
employee is to eat vegetarian or accept additional personal finance costs. (I
would also question the feasibility of finding vegetarian options all the
time, but that might be due to my work travel sometimes taking me to more
rural areas).

The question then becomes, is it acceptable for a business to use monetary
incentive/disincentive to encourage lifestyle or ideological changes in it's
employees?

~~~
ravitation
In this case exacerbated by the fact that said lifestyle or ideological change
involves one of the bare necessities (since all of the "equivalent" examples
I've seen do not).

~~~
thedevilslawyer
"> bare necessities"

That's highly debatable. A good part of the world lives completely fine even
without this bare necessity.

~~~
mreome
The bare necessity here is food in general. An employee has to eat when on
business trips, so they can't a avoid the issue. They either have to accept
the financial loss, or accept the dietary change.

There are of course alternatives to eating meat, but the real question is
whether it's appropriate for a business to use financial disincentivis
(effective pay reductions) to encourage lifestyle/idealogy change in their
employees.

------
Waterluvian
Being a vegetarian is exactly as equal a choice of freedom as being an
omnivore or carnivore. This feels wrong to push this lifestyle on people. Of
course one can always just not do business with We Work.

~~~
bunderbunder
Let's not be hyperbolic here. Serving food that doesn't happen to contain meat
isn't forcing you to be vegetarian any more than serving only soft drinks at
an event would be forcing you to be a teetotaler.

~~~
thaumasiotes
On the other hand, a policy of "you can expense vegetarian meals, but only
vegetarian meals" is forcing you to be vegetarian at a much higher and more
obnoxious level than that.

~~~
vfc1
Employees are not being forced to become vegetarians, they can still eat fish,
dairy and eggs and expense their meals.

They can even choose to go outside and eat meat, they have freedom of choice.

~~~
skinnymuch
But dairy and eggs are part of a normal vegetarian diet. You worded it as if
they are not.

------
ArtWomb
"Meatspace Meeting Space Bans Meats In Spaces"

------
exabrial
Ok, they're a private company, they can do what they want. If you don't like
it, don't work there.

But, really......

~~~
meowface
Like it or not, this is the side of history that will eventually win out. In
50-100 years from now, expect this kind of arrangement to be very common with
American companies.

~~~
prepend
What’s a good way for me to bet you $1000 that you’re wrong? This statement
seems so interesting. What’s the basis for this thought process? Isn’t the
trend for meat consumption to increase with wealth so as the world develops,
more meat will be consumed. [0]

[0] [https://ourworldindata.org/meat-and-seafood-production-
consu...](https://ourworldindata.org/meat-and-seafood-production-consumption)

~~~
myWindoonn
There's a site that will help you do this:
[https://longbets.org/faq/](https://longbets.org/faq/)

The downside is that you won't get your money. It'll go to charity. But you'll
be able to prove your point to your great-great-grandkids!

~~~
prepend
It will treat them to either a nice hamburger or veggie burger.

~~~
dang
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

------
curo
A lot of comments seem to be missing the facts:

\- WeWork isn't forcing employees to be vegetarian (it's not like a hiring
requirement)

\- most companies have restrictions and rules surrounding their expensing

\- WeWork has decided they won't reimburse meat (employees can still buy meat)

Should we force WeWork leadership, despite their rights to hold moral
positions, to pay for something they don't want to pay for?

~~~
jhayward
We should certainly make sure that they feel the full effects of their
decisions, in PR, the employment market, and in public praise or ridicule.

~~~
mikeash
They will feel the full effects of their decisions, whatever those may be. I
suspect they will not be large. I certainly can’t be arsed to care about this
and I don’t see why you’d exert effort to “make sure” of anything here.

------
1_800_UNICORN
On one hand, this seems like a very heavy-handed move considering today's
societal ubiquity of meat.

On the other hand, I believe that in 100 years we'll look at today as the dark
ages in terms of the scale of our industrial meat production.

So, I'm cautiously curious to see if other companies follow suit or not.

------
user5994461
It's obvious they are trying to save money, with the weirdest excuse they
could find. Meat is the most expensive part of any meal.

~~~
watwut
Eating vegetarian is more expensive if you want to feel full and satiated in
the end.

~~~
sarreph
I spent all my life an omnivore, until the last two years I became vegetarian;
6 of those months vegan. I’m inclined to agree with you if you meant that a
‘satiated’ vegan diet is more expensive, because often the (lower demand /
higher price) raw ingredients to make meals from scratch are more niche and
varied.

However, once you throw (principally) dairy into the mix, including mass-
market meat substitutes (such as Quorn which often contains dairy
derivatives), your options expand to the point where it is easy to a) just
drop the meat and increase veg. intake with supplemented dairy from common
dishes or b) replace the meat with a price-competitive meat substitute.

If you did indeed mean vegetarianism in general then I’m keen to know why you
think it is more expensive.

I’m with other commenters here that this is a weird cost-saving measure from
WW, and that dietary choices should not be imposed on people like this (whilst
acknowledging WW is a private company and can do whatever they want—- it’s
just a strange way to force it on people IMO)

~~~
teaneedz
I believe WeWork opened a great discussion and I personally applaud them for
taking a stand. I also applauded Starbucks with straws like most others here.

Also, I find that it's pretty easy to actually save money on vegan food. Maybe
it takes a little planning, but it's not that difficult to walk away with more
money eating vegan while feeling better.

------
pkaye
> co-founder Miguel McKelvey said the firm’s upcoming internal “Summer Camp”
> retreat would offer no meat options for attendees.

Maybe if they care about the environment perhaps they should skip the summer
camp retreat and donate the money to charity? It certainly is not an essential
thing to be doing.

~~~
busterarm
Taco Thursdays were the _ONLY_ good reason to work at a WeWork location
(Unless you are trying to get paid to be an alcoholic).

------
teaneedz
It's funny to observe the criticism on a technical forum that should be in
tune with the data. WeWork is setting a policy that is on the right side of
history—for animals and the environment. I didn't see a lot of criticism on
Starbucks straw decision. However, when the cost is a sacrifice closer to
home, even when logic doesn't support the whining, so many try to find fault
with a company decision that is net positive.

~~~
ChickeNES
>I didn't see a lot of criticism on Starbucks straw decision.

There's been plenty

[https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/11/opinions/starbucks-plastic-
dr...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/11/opinions/starbucks-plastic-draw-hurts-
disabled-like-me-blake/index.html)

~~~
teaneedz
Ok I see one article here that I still disagree with. Starbucks says they will
work on this scenario and what prevents one from bringing their own straw if
it's a disability issue? I think a solution here is possible while still
protecting the environment and animals.

------
tracker1
As a diabetic who is allergic to legumes... fuck you WeWork, I will _never_ do
business with you given a choice.

I know eggs and fish are okay, but what were the eggs fed? It does matter. If
it's a company event, will there be eggs and fish, or just soy products?

~~~
siegecraft
I was wondering when someone would mention diabetes. I feel like this policy
will add a few more diabetics to the population. Now if they wanted to be
really revolutionary they could ban sweets/sugar from their reimbursement
policies instead..

~~~
tracker1
The worse part, is sometimes I react to eggs/dairy (that are fed soy)... And,
frankly not a huge fan of fish, which I could deal with. But there's really no
way for me to get sufficient protein from vegetarian sources without getting
too many carbs, and I'm not even sure there are complete vegetarian proteins
without legumes.

------
cjbprime
> In an email to employees this week outlining the new policy, co-founder
> Miguel McKelvey said the firm’s upcoming internal "Summer Camp" retreat
> would offer no meat options for attendees.

Unlike some commenters, I'm okay with this! But the carbon cost of flying
thousands of their employees on transatlantic return flights to the UK for
this Summer Camp will be orders of magnitude greater than the carbon cost of
any food choices, so it seems like an insincere concern.

~~~
fulafel
You can't fix everything at once. Whataboutism, etc.

~~~
cjbprime
I thought about this some, and don't agree that this is whataboutism, because
there's no change of topic. The environmental impact of WeWork's business
decisions is supposed to be the topic. But the impact of massive transatlantic
air travel gets a pass, and the far lesser impact of meat-eating doesn't. I
think it's legitimate to ask whether someone's being consistent or sincere in
their commitment to Cause X when they're decrying Thing X while (somewhat
uniquely!) performing a Thing Y that does much more to hurt Cause X than Thing
X does, you know?

~~~
fulafel
But aren't nearly all individual actions to combat climate change or improve
animal welfare like this? I think it's not hypocritical to take first steps
that are easy, it's just tactics.

------
tedunangst
> staff will not be able to expense any meals that include poultry, pork or
> red meat.

What about dolphin?

~~~
gamblor956
Like most fake vegetarians, the policy apparently does not include any aquatic
creatures like fish, squid, whales, or dolphins...even though the latter two
are intelligent mammals with more capacity to feel pain than any type of
poultry.

~~~
bunderbunder
It's also already illegal to eat the latter two in the country in which WeWork
operates.

~~~
tptacek
WeWork operates in Tokyo as well.

------
proofbygazing
Probably a net-negative business move.

This creates goodwill among vegetarians within the company, who will
appreciate being part of this uniquely progressive organization. However,
their lives will not actually change very much - they won't have to witness
meat at company events, sure, but their travel lives will be the same - they
will just order vegetarian, like usual.

This creates ill-will among meat eaters at the company, who will want to eat
burgers and pork chops and will not be able to do so on the company expense,
like every other company allows. Unlike the vegetarians, they will be reminded
of this not only at company events but also every time they get food while
traveling, as they have to think through what they are allowed to eat and see
all the meat options, knowing that WeWork is the reason they can't have them.

The animosity outweighs the goodwill here by a large margin. Retention will
suffer.

------
timavr
Hmmm in Sydney wework charges 850 per desk per month.

After paying rent, rice is the only option.

------
lozenge
Is anybody being flown to this summer camp? A couple hours on a plane can
match a few months of meat-free lunches. Especially considering employees
might partially compensate with their non-expensed meals.

~~~
charmides
"A couple hours on a plane can match a few months of meat-free lunches."

I think you are mistaken there. Maybe if you only care about CO2 emissions,
but meat production is also incredibly wasteful on resources like water, and
is at least objectionable from an animal welfare standpoint.

------
minimaxir
Original source (w/o sound-on autoplay video):
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework-
te...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework-tells-
employees-meat-is-permanently-off-the-company-menu)

------
scott00
As a business decision this seems incredibly odd. Being vegetarian or
supporting vegetarianism does not seem like it would have disproportionate
representation among either their target clientele or their target employees.
As such it seems to me it would have minor negative effect on their perception
by clients, and moderately negative impact on their perception by employees. I
don't see why they would risk that for a cause entirely unconnected to their
business, for which there are many less controversial ways to make an impact
(energy efficiency in their buildings, commitment to purchase carbon free
energy, etc).

~~~
munificent
_> I don't see why they would risk that for a cause entirely unconnected to
their business_

Maybe they just really believe in it.

~~~
proofbygazing
Well then it seems like starting an alternative to PETA would be a better use
of management's time and efforts than running a real estate REIT that just has
a vegetarian-friendly per diem policy.

Of course, they won't do that, because they actually just care about making
money and aren't really worried about this stuff. So I'm still puzzled.

------
stephengillie
Odd to see this paragraph in the middle - it has no relation to anything else
in the article, and the 2 points don't relate to each other - beyond the theme
of companies banning things:

> _American Airlines Group Inc. and Starbucks Corp. recently joined the chorus
> of companies pledging to phase out plastic straws and drink stirrers. And
> Southwest Airlines Co., in a bid to reduce allergy risk, said this week
> peanuts will no longer be available on flights starting Aug. 1._

As far as I'm aware, meat-based meal options are available from both airlines
and the restaurant.

~~~
CodeTheInternet
I think they meant AA and *$ are looking to help the environemt.

------
mhb
What's their position on plastic straws?

------
koala_man
Is this any weirder than how a lot of companies let employees charge their
personal electric vehicles for free, but won't let you expense personal
gasoline?

~~~
downrightmike
The average cost per mile for an electric is about 8 cents, gasoline is about
16 cents.
[https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf](https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf)

~~~
koala_man
Not sure what you're getting at.

------
bonesmoses
Just the annoyance of having to itemize a receipt _to that granularity_ would
annoy me enough to quit working at a company like that.

------
pcunite
_" New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an
individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact," said
McKelvey in the memo, "even more than switching to a hybrid car."_

What research?

~~~
donalhunt
Here's one example from the European Commission:
[http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=2359](http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=2359)

the tl;dr is that 2% of overall environmental impact in the EU27 could reduced
by switching to a Mediterranean style diet (reduced red meat but not 100% non-
meat diet).

And PNAS have another study which used data covering 66% of the global
population:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/11/28/1711889114](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/11/28/1711889114)

------
fareesh
I think the market will force them to rethink their decision, and rightfully
so

------
VBprogrammer
If a company I worked for introduced that I think my response would be
subterfuge. "Hey buddy, I'll have the steak but can you do me a favour and put
2 beetroot and feta tarts on the bill instead."

~~~
charmides
Gotcha. By "subterfuge", I assume you meant "risk my employment by committing
reimbursement fraud".

~~~
proofbygazing
> committing reimbursement fraud

lol, nobody takes reimbursements this seriously

~~~
charmides
Yes, people do. What OP described is called fraud and people get terminated
for fraud all the time.

~~~
VBprogrammer
One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust policy.

~~~
charmides
You can quit your job if hurting animals and harming the environment is so
important to you.

~~~
VBprogrammer
I care about companies not making moral judgements on behalf of their
employees.

I guess this particular restriction aligns with your morality closely enough
that you are happy to give it a pass. What if instead, a company morally
objected to halal slaughter and refused to reimburse employees for halal
meals? What if they decided coffee production was too likely to have involved
child labour and so that's off the list too. Surgery deserts make people fat
and can lead to diabities, can't go paying for that either.

For what it's worth 3 of my sister's are vegan. My mother has been vegetarian
since the age of 9. So it's fair to say I've eaten my fair share of meat free
meals.

I think as a company there are a whole bunch of things you could do to promote
vegetarianism without alienativing 90% of the population. An easy one would be
offering a similar range of vegetarian alternatives as they do normal meals.

~~~
charmides
"I care about companies not making moral judgements on behalf of their
employees."

This is absurd. Of course companies need to enforce some form of morality
among its employees, for instance by having an anti-murder policy or by firing
employees who shout racist epitaphs at quarterly meetings. The question is
just where to draw the line.

"What if instead, a company morally objected to halal slaughter and refused to
reimburse employees for halal meals? What if they decided coffee production
was too likely to have involved child labour and so that's off the list too.
Surgery deserts make people fat and can lead to diabities, can't go paying for
that either."

Sounds terrifying. One day, those fascist may ask people to quit drinking on
the job, enforce a no-drug policy, ask people to adhere to a dress-code, and
prohibit them from carrying firearms on their desk job. Or wait, did I just
take your slippery slope fallacy in the wrong direction?

"For what it's worth 3 of my sister's are vegan. My mother has been vegetarian
since the age of 9. So it's fair to say I've eaten my fair share of meat free
meals."

For the sake of your health, I sure hope you have eaten meals without meat
every once in a while.

~~~
VBprogrammer
> This is absurd. Of course companies need to enforce some form of morality
> among its employees, for instance by having an anti-murder policy or by
> firing employees who shout racist epitaphs at quarterly meetings. The
> question is just where to draw the line.

Those things aren't the responsibility of the employer. They are illegal.

I don't actually think my argument was the slippery slope. It was my attempt
to show that other things could equally be considered immoral that perhaps
don't align quite as neatly with your militant vegetarianism.

Anyway, I doubt anyone else is actually reading this 2 week old thread so I'll
leave it at that. Have a good weekend.

~~~
charmides
Again you are factually wrong. As long as it is not threatening, it is not
illegal in the USA to express racism. That's why companies take a stricter
stance against racism than the law does.

>It was my attempt to show that other things could equally be considered
immoral that perhaps don't align quite as neatly with your militant
vegetarianism.

I don't think you know what the word "militant" means.

Also, your argument remains absurd. Just because there is no universal
agreement on morality, it does not mean that morality is relative and it
certainly does not mean that companies should not have policies based on their
morals and their values.

As a matter of fact, your line of argument is so ridiculous that I doubt even
you believe in what you are saying. I think that this company's policy made
you feel hurt and attacked for visceral reasons (the do-gooder derogation
effect) and you are trying to justify that feeling for yourself by dressing it
up as a political argument.

>Anyway, I doubt anyone else is actually reading this 2 week old thread so
I'll leave it at that. Have a good weekend.

It sounds like a good idea that you leave. I hope that you learned something
here and wish you a pleasant week.

------
mcintyre1994
> In an email to employees this week outlining the new policy, co-founder
> Miguel McKelvey said the firm’s upcoming internal “Summer Camp” retreat
> would offer no meat options for attendees.

Unless they have two events called Summer Camp, that's not an internal event,
it's an event they're selling to their members as including the best hand
picked Street food vendors in the UK. I imagine lots of people will be
surprised that none of them sell meat if it's actually that event.

------
ourmandave
No Taco Bell was harmed in the making of this policy.

------
vfc1
Meat has an horrific environmental impact, so i can see why a socially
conscious company would not want to associate itself to that.

Notice that employees are still free to eat whatever they want, its just that
the company will not pay for ecologically unsustainable meals.

So the freedeom of choice of the employees is unchanged, they can still go out
and grab a burguer but its out of their own pocket.

~~~
proofbygazing
That's the same as fining people for practicing their religion and then saying
that their freedom of religion is unchanged, they just have to pay more to do
it.

Of course this affects employee choices, to think otherwise is obtuse.

------
danmg
This is completely unenforceable.

Just claim that you ordered the dish without meat.

------
Justin_K
They pay their employees like shit to start, no surprise here.

------
Animats
Will WeLive dorms also be made meat-free?

------
AdamM12
Feel like this is just gonna cause so many bike shredding arguments internally
it's not really worth it.

------
db48x
Seems like a breach of contract to me.

------
wchandler
Easy, stay away from that company.

------
sunstone
As long as chicken and fish are not meat then this is ok with me. :)

------
PKop
This is the anti-humanistic mindset that prioritizes "no impact" on nature
above all else, instead of prioritizing human well being / human flourishing,
which itself would account for environmental stewardship, but not to the level
of sacrificing health to avoid eating animals (the healthiest option).

~~~
hnaccy
Why is speciesism acceptable but not racism?

~~~
PKop
You certainly don't feel this way in principle, just in degree.

Do you swat at mosquitos or flies when they bite you?

Explain to me how you think different races compare to each other like a human
compares to a cow? We are superior to the cow in so many ways... is that your
opinion of races?

I think it is immoral to not hold humans in higher regard than animals, and do
what is necessary to prioritize the well being of animals above humans where
there is a choice to be made.

Also, I am absolutely in favor of treating animals as humanely as possible...
though I won't go so far as to not eat them.

Maybe some group of humans will evolve over time to thrive without eating
animals... but we haven't so far.

~~~
CuriouslyC
You are superior to a cow in so many ways, according to you, based on your
criteria. The nazis thought they were superior to jews in so many ways,
according to them, based on their criteria. One is just as objectively true as
the other.

~~~
PKop
Let's just leave it to "power". We are immensely more powerful than the cow,
seeing as they aren't having any debates about whether they should eat us or
not, and can't do anything to stop whether we want to eat them.. it is simply
our choice to do so or not.

I think that's pretty objective.

------
sabarn01
This seems like a Just don't work for that company issue. Some places don't
reimburse travel meals at all and as long as I have a choice I wouldn't work
for them.

------
everdev
Dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524534)

~~~
jwilk
(0 comments)

~~~
everdev
or 10...

------
mkempe
"The company estimates that the policy will save 445.1m pounds of CO2
emissions ... by 2023." That's 202,000 kt over a 5-year plan.

Global fuel-based emissions in 2015: 36,061,710 kt CO2.

In other words, they think they are so important as to "save" about 0.1% of
global CO2 annually just by refusing to include meat in the menu of their own
events and employee-expensed meals. _I doubt the magnitude of their
estimates._

[added] For a sense of scale, WeWork has about 2,000 employees.

~~~
jlebar
Why does it make sense to compare _global_ CO2 emissions to _WeWork 's_ CO2
emissions?

One company with one decision making an 0.1% reduction on global CO2 annually
sounds pretty darn good to me.

~~~
drb91
It should sound good—unbelievably good. This is why the global comparison
makes sense: it implies wework is already using at least 0.1% of the world’s
C02 production. Which seems absurd for 1/4000000th of the world population.

Maybe they were just letting cows rot in their pantry, I dunno.

------
ahelwer
Nice. If you care at all about moral justifications for your own actions,
eating meat is an extremely difficult position to defend. It even falls on the
wrong side of the Kantian perfect/imperfect duty divide, since the default
really is _not_ eating meat, so eating meat is a positive action which must be
justified. I think it's a great example of philosophy pointing out the
absurdity of a (very) widely-practiced phenomenon.

Of course, there's always the perpetual ethical get-out-of-jail-free card of
doubting the existence of any finite set of values (articulated in our
imprecise, incomplete, informal language) which could inform all our actions
in this staggeringly-complex world, plus the impossibility-in-principle of
living consistent with those values ;)

~~~
maccio92
How does that argument extend to animals that eat other animals? And why is
the default defined as not eating meat?

~~~
ahelwer
We usually divide the world into moral agents (pretty much just humans) and
non-moral-agents.

The default is not eating meat because the default is not eating _anything_.
Humans must take a positive action to eat something.

Generally perfect duties in the Kantian sense take the form of "thou shalt-
nots", so a positive action you shouldn't take, like killing a random stranger
or some such. This is contrasted with imperfect duties, which are things that
are merely virtuous to do - like using your time & resources to help the less-
fortunate, for example.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>The default is not eating meat because the default is not eating anything.

That's default for rocks and such, but not living things, whose existence
requires by default the death of other living things

~~~
CodeTheInternet
I'm a solitarian. I use photosynthesis.

------
qubax
If this is what a founder of WeWork is focusing on, I can't wait til they IPO
so I can short it. I doubt this company survives the next recession.

As for livestock vs vegetation being better or worse for the environment, it
isn't a contest. Farming is many times worse for the environment than raising
animals. Has any of these useless journalists, CEOs and crazy vegans ever
stepped on a farm? Do they understand what is involved in farming? To farm,
you do your darnedest to pretty much wiped out all animals from insects to
rabbits to coyotes to large herd animals to protect your farm. And if the
world were to go vegan, we'd have to cut down every rich forest ( amazon to
the jungles of southeast asia and africa ) to provide farmland for vegetables.
Whereas wheat, soy and corn that we feed livestock can grow in harsher
temperatures, most vegetables we eat cannot. Also goats, pigs, etc can forage
on weed and other "pest" vegetation in harsh climates.

Also, farming kills 1000 times more animal than raising livestock. These
vegans are so insane that they think vegetables fall from the heavens like
manna. Nope. An incredible amount of insects and small rodents/mammals are
killed prior to planting and during harvest. That's right, every salad, every
fruit and every meal that you eat contains some animal.

[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not-
simpler/i-hate-...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not-
simpler/i-hate-to-break-it-to-you-but-you-already-eat-bugs/)

I am so sick of the vegan nonsense. It's not based on fact, reality or common
sense. It's just agenda pushing virtue signaling where people pretend to be
morally superior for nothing.

More animal lives perished for a vegans salad than a carnivore's steak. And a
vegan eating a salad is actually eating more animals than a carnivore eating a
steak.

So morally speaking, a meat eater has the upper hand if you think all animal
lives matter.

But maybe we should listen to a dumb city dwelling vegan who has never set
foot on a farm. Lets wipe out forests and cultivate the land for farming.
We'll wipe tens of trillions of animals in the process. And that's before
dousing the farmland and vegetation with pesticides, petrochemicals, etc. But
vegan feels over reality right according to the lazy journalist and the agenda
pushing CEOs and corporations.

Or do cow, pig, chicken lives matter more than insect and small mammals?

Are the thousands of lives lost for a single salad meal worth a single cow's
life that could produce a thousand meals?

Edit: Downvoted? I guess vegans don't like science. Maybe you are more of a
huffpost crowd.

[https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/02/bugs-in-
food_n_1467...](https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/02/bugs-in-
food_n_1467694.html)

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11581770/Hair-
aphid...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11581770/Hair-aphids-and-
bugs-the-horrifying-stuff-we-unwittingly-eat.html)

Downvote all you want. Vegans eat more animals than a carnivore. In case you
were wondering, insects are animals.

~~~
shadunkle
Currently the number one cause of Amazon rainforest loss is cattle ranching.

Animal agriculture is worse for the environment than plant agriculture. There
are numerous studies to support this, here's one, [1].

It is true that animal products at times use land that cannot be well utilized
for most plants. But many studies, such as [2], show that this land is
unnecessary to feed the world. A vegan diet uses the least amount of land, and
excess land can either be utilized for other purposes or returned to nature.
Of course there are certain parts of the world which have different capacities
to grow different foods, so what I have written is true as a general rule it
is not true of literally every location.

It is also true that a vegan diet does kill animals. Though, it kills the
fewest animals, even considering field mice and insects killed in the farming
process. See [3].

[1] Livestock's Long Shadow -
[http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM](http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM)

[2] Carrying capacity of U.S. agricultural land: Ten diet scenarios -
[https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.el...](https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.elementa.000116/)

[3] Number of Animals Killed to Produce One Million Calories in Eight Food
Categories -
[http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc/](http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc/)

------
Markoff
sounds like they are pushing Steve Jobs apple diet, worked out great treating
his cancer

once again thing which would be illegal in Europe, employer can't decide what
kind of food they will reimburse me

------
nodesocket
> that staff will not be able to expense any meals that include poultry, pork
> or red meat

That is absurd. Imagine the opposite (a company only allowed expensing meat
meals) and the amount of blowback, PR nightmare, and internet outrage. The
hypocrisy continues.

~~~
nkrisc
What exactly is the hypocrisy? Eating only meat is a very restricted and
strange diet while excluding only meat can be a perfectly healthy diet. You're
trying to make these equal opposites but they're not.

Sort of like how not serving alcohol is acceptable but serving only alcohol
(not even water) would be outrageous.

~~~
nodesocket
The fact that they are limiting people's choices and free will to eat meat and
write-off (financial incentive) is the core problem.

~~~
mikeash
They’re not limiting people’s choices, they’re just limiting what they want to
pay for. It’s not like they’re threatening to fire anyone who eats meat on
their own.

I don’t see the problem here. Lots of companies don’t buy their employees food
_at all_. (And I say this as a meat eater who would definitely be affected by
this change.)

~~~
grahamburger
The biggest issue for me would be getting reimbursed for travel expenses. True
that some companies don't buy food for their employees at all but I definitely
expect to be fed while traveling for the company, and I would definitely be
finding a new place to work if I couldn't eat meat while traveling.

------
simonsarris
> “New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an
> individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact,” said
> McKelvey in the memo

I cannot imagine that scales - you cannot extrapolate from micro to macro
here. No animals = no food for 7 billion people.[1] Definitely no vegetarian
food without animals.

Do vegetarians not know how grains and legumes are grown? How fertilizer and
soil amendments are made?

It would be incredibly destructive to the soil to use no animal products to
grow 'vegetarian' food. Definitely impossible at scale, you'd just be strip
mining the soil. On smaller scale farms the ideal is to give crop land a break
by turning it into pasture for 1-2 years. A great way to "mulch" the crop
leftovers (you don't eat the whole part of the corn plant, etc) is to use them
as forage (cornstalk grazing).

Seems really odd to shun the "meat" aspect when we really are "using every
part of the buffalo." And a big part of our animal use is making food for
sanctimonious vegetarians.

[1] about half of the earth land surface is better suited to livestock farming
than legumes/grains/other row crops. You know what grows well in cold, rocky
New England soil? Pork, chicken, sheep, etc.

