Our Vision
Imagine a world where everyone chooses delicious and healthy food that is good for all humans, animals, and our planet.
We are ProVeg
ProVeg is a new international food awareness organisation, launching in four different countries - the UK, Spain, Poland and Germany - in Summer 2017. There are plans for wider expansion, both inside and outside of Europe, in 2018 and beyond.
Our Mission
Reducing the global consumption of animals by 50%
by the year 2040.
Our approach
Reducing animal consumption worldwide is a huge undertaking. To effect personal and social change, three elements are essential: (1) inspiring and motivating people; (2) providing them with the proper tools to support them in their efforts; (3) and creating change on social, economic and political levels to make their dietary changes more accessible, convenient and sustainable.
ProVeg inspires and motivates people by raising awareness of the five PROs (reasons) why we should move towards a more plant-based lifestyle. ProVeg supports people by providing practical information about how they can transition to animal-free alternatives.
ProVeg also works to improve the taste, ease and accessibility of plant-based living by working to influence government policy, public institutions, the food industry, and society as a whole. We appreciate every single step that individuals, organisations and institutions take to move towards a more plant-based lifestyle. To make all this a reality, a powerful movement is essential. That is why ProVeg is working to create a global community of committed supporters and advocates.
Why Proveg?
Many of the world’s most urgent problems share a common cause: our food choices. ProVeg is dedicated to raising awareness of how we can tackle these problems through diet. Our food choices can become a multiproblem solution.
PRO Taste
Most of us are aware that our diet impacts our health, other people, animals, and our planet. But growing up routinely eating animal products, liking the taste and convenience, we rarely consider the consequences and alternatives. Plant-based foods are seen by many as lacking in taste, range and availability. We call this “veg prejudice”.
Our values
Positivity
We enjoy making the world a better place. We focus on positive incentives such as delicious and exciting food to motivate people. We don’t judge people’s attitudes and behaviours, instead we encourage them to move towards a more plant-based lifestyle. We support them in this process, acknowledging that they go at their pace down their own unique path. We strongly believe that small individual changes made by lots of people make a significant difference to the world.
Empowerment
We aim to empower people to make informed food choices that reflect their own values and beliefs, enabling them to translate their knowledge into actions on their own authority. And we aim to empower activists to increase the impact, reach and professionalism of their activities by sharing our expertise as well as successful campaigns and projects.
Unity
We aim to unify existing forms of plant-based advocacy around the world and turn them into an effective global movement. We welcome people with different motivations (health, animals, justice, the environment) and reach out to vegans, omnivores, and everyone in between. We believe it is less important where people currently stand on the dietary spectrum compared to the direction in which they are headed. We want the plant-based movement to become a powerful global community. Together we are ProVeg!
Compassion
When interacting with people, and working to help animals and the environment, we are guided by compassion. We respect others and do not judge or discriminate against them. We believe in the power of diversity – in every sense of the word – when it comes to reaching a common goal. We are committed to practicing self-compassion and mindfulness to reach out to others and make our lives and our activism more sustainable.
Effectiveness
We are strongly committed to focusing on the impact of our work. We work hard to identify and select the strategies we believe will have the most impact in terms of reducing the harmful effects of our diets. That is why we prefer pragmatic reasoning over dogma, while always keeping an open, critical and problem-solving mindset. And that is why we always thoroughly evaluate the impact and effectiveness of our work.
Our Founders
Dr. Melanie Joy
Founder
Dr. Melanie Joy is a Harvard-educated psychologist, celebrated speaker, organizational consultant, and author of the award-winning book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. She has been eating a meatless diet since she was 23. A spoiled hamburger that led to her being hospitalized eventually triggered her to rethink her relationship with animals and food. Today, she consumes a diet free from any animal products. Dr. Joy currently lives in Berlin, Germany, with her husband and co-founder of ProVeg, Sebastian Joy.
Tobias Leenaert
Founder
Tobias Leenaert is a longtime speaker, trainer, and strategist. He is also the co-founder of the Belgian organization EVA (Ethical Vegetarian Alternative). Passionate about effectiveness, Tobias writes regularly for his blog, The Vegan Strategist. Tobias realized he was a vegetarian when he was twelve years old, although it took him another ten years to effectively cut out all meat from his diet. Today he lives in Genth, Belgium. He does not consume any animal products, but takes great care not to be dogmatic on the issue.
Sebastian Joy
Founder
Sebastian Joy is among the most important representatives of the vegetarian and vegan movement in Europe. Sebastian is the CEO of VEBU, a leading European pro-vegan organisation, a board member of the European Vegetarian Union (EVU) and he is also a lecturer in nonprofit management at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. He first became a vegetarian when he was 24 years old. Three years later, after reading a book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, he stopped consuming animal products.
