Editor’s Note: Emi Brennan is a fourth-year undergraduate leading an initiative to make plant-based options the default at department gatherings and student center events across campus. Her activism is supported by the New Roots Institute and Better Food Foundation. Sign her campaign letter of support here.

Last quarter, UC San Diego eliminated the surcharges on plant-based milks at all dining halls, making the plant-based option more accessible to students. Plant-based meals by default go even further than accessibility: designing dining environments that make the sustainable, ethical choice the easy one. 

Plant-based defaults and nudges are proven methods of shifting food choices toward sustainable, plant-based options. Rooted in behavioral science, plant-based defaults and nudges use choice architecture — interventions which seek to change behavior by designing the physical, social, or psychological environment where individuals make choices — to promote sustainable food. Defaults signify that the vegan option is the automatic choice, with the animal-based options available upon request. Nudges are similar, but are smaller approaches that increase consumers’ choice of plant-based products. Examples of plant-based nudges are climate-friendly ratios — where the plant-based option is the most abundant choice — prime placement of plant-based options, and subtle substitutions that swap animal-based ingredients for vegan ones. 

Examining the benefits of plant-based eating — in other words, where no animal products are involved — and the research behind diet-based behavior change, it becomes apparent that plant-based defaults are an effective approach UCSD can take to normalize campus consumption of plant-based foods. Although individual dietary choices can be impactful, relying only on personal responsibility disregards systemic barriers at play and perpetuates the myth of the personal carbon footprint. Plant-based defaults shift the focus onto institutions and place UCSD’s values — sustainability, innovation, and research — at the forefront of our campus food system. 

Plant-based foods have a significantly lower carbon footprint and resource usage than animal-based counterparts, reduce disease risk while supporting health and wellbeing, and are more accommodating — particularly for those with dietary restrictions. Vegan foods fight the climate crisis, simultaneously increasing outcomes for social justice, public health, animal health, and the environment. To tangibly increase consumption of these foods on campus, plant-based defaults and nudges offer a path forward.

While plant-based defaults are the most effective at increasing consumer choice of plant-based foods, both defaults and nudges lead to results by gently steering individuals toward a desired action without forbidding animal-based options. 

Time and time again, studies have shown that plant-based defaults and nudges reduce consumption of animal products. Three randomized controlled field experiments demonstrated that vegetarian options, when merely presented on electronic conference registration forms as the default, significantly influenced healthier and more sustainable food choices. When tested on college campuses, research showed that those assigned plant-based defaults were more than 3.5 times more likely to choose the plant-based option than those assigned a meat default. 

When plant-based defaults may not be possible, nudges are still effective in increasing sustainable food choice. For instance, doubling the number of vegetarian options can raise the sales of plant-based options by between 41% and 79%. These defaults and nudges effectively shift social attitudes surrounding food, centering plant-based options as the norm. 

In a society that functions around animal products in our daily food choices, it’s understandable that these changes might feel dramatic. But experts from the University of Oxford, Harvard University , and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that shifting toward plant-based foods — and away from industrial animal agriculture — is key to limiting the impacts of climate change. 

Despite this research, individual-based diet change is often constricted by external factors. Meat and dairy are making a comeback, which is not surprising given the broader forces at play — America’s protein obsession, the up to $38 billion in subsidies allocated to meat and dairy industries annually, and the largest meat and dairy corporations spreading disinformation on the link between animal agriculture and the climate crisis. Our food trends don’t exist within a vacuum, so our agency in the information we consume and food we purchase can be limited. Individual action isn’t always an option. This is where institutional changes, like plant-based defaults, can be fruitful. 

We have an opportunity to pioneer this kind of institutional change on our own campus. The department of sociology and department of Latin American studies have begun piloting catered events with plant-based defaults and nudges. The pilots were a success — so much so that no attendees opted for the animal-based option at the Latin American Studies’ Burnout Prevention Dinner, instead choosing the default vegan option. These successes speak to not only the power of the default and nudge approach, but also the interest in sustainable, ethical plant-based food on campus. Once other departments, campus organizations, and student centers similarly pilot events where plant-based food is served as the default, long-term commitments to this approach become realistic. Soon, campus food norms could shift. Choosing the vegan option wouldn’t be socially isolating — rather, it would become the standard. 

In the face of turbulent food policy and the climate crisis, may we remember our collective power to enact change. Together, let’s nurture food system reform at UCSD. Let’s dare to imagine a better, more environmentally-conscious campus.