Campaigners March in Taipei to Put Plant-Based Diets in Taiwan's Net-Zero Plan

Campaigners led by the Sustainable Healthy Diets Research Institute marched in Taipei on Saturday, November 7, urging Taiwan's government to add plant-based diets to the country's 2050 net-zero roadmap and to promote low-carbon meals in schools and companies, the Taipei Times reports.

Cutting carbon is about what we eat as well as how we make energy, says institute director-general Chang You-chuan, who points out that food accounts for about a third of global carbon emissions.

The group set out four asks: a national carbon-footprint calculator for food ingredients, plant-based diets written into the net-zero roadmap, low-carbon eating in company ESG plans, and low-carbon school lunches so kids grow up with healthy, sustainable habits.

We hope to bring everyone's strength together, so that low-carbon vegetarianism would no longer be limited to personal choice, and become a key strategy for the nation to promote net zero transition.

The afternoon wasn't all speeches. Public broadcaster PTS found vegan stalls next to the Legislative Yuan serving pan-fried "squid" made from konjac and king oyster mushrooms, and tacos with a soy protein filling. (We'd march for those.)

Meat Free Monday Taiwan secretary-general Chang Chia-pei says the group's work over the past year and a half has already persuaded the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration to create a "Vegan Mark", the Ministry of Education to offer vegetarian cooking training for school chefs and teachers, and the environment ministry to publish the average emissions of common food ingredients.

Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming, a vegetarian for 11 years, tells PTS he warmly encourages people to eat more plant-based food, noting that livestock produce around 15% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. He is more cautious about a top-down national mandate, pointing to a German government experiment that lasted only about a year.

There is room to grow. According to PTS, meat consumption in Taiwan has risen from about 77kg (170lb) per person a year a decade ago to 91.6kg (202lb) in 2025. Last year Green Queen reported that a 2010 policy encouraging one meat-free day a week had reached only 55% of schools by 2020, and that Taiwan may adopt a national plant-based strategy inspired by Denmark's.

Taiwan already has one of the richest vegetarian food cultures in the world, and its researchers found that vegetarians have half the risk of stroke. Denmark showed what a government can do when it published the world's first national plant-based action plan, and back in 2017 Danish politicians went vegan to tackle climate change.

Taiwan has the food, the chefs and now a growing movement. The table is set.