Hong Kong’s social enterprise Green Monday raises awareness about the benefits of a greener diet as the launch pad for promoting an “earth-friendly” lifestyle.
According to David Yeung, Green Monday’s founder and CEO, the need for food has been one of the biggest dangers to the environment and one of the largest contributors to climate change from emissions of greenhouse gases, energy used for food production and water usage for food processing.
“We want to tell people what’s wrong with the food system,” says Yeung. “And to emphasise the urgency for us to change our behaviour altogether.”
Green Monday encourages individuals not to eat meat one day a week, such as on a Monday. This will improve their health because the meat they eat might contain antibiotics used to feed animals. This small shift in diet also helps to reduce the individual’s own carbon emissions.
Yeung’s views on food changed in 2001 when he became a vegetarian. His father had been a vegetarian for about five years prior to that, but didn’t actively persuade his son to become one. The decision was entirely Yeung’s and came when he asked himself “why hurt life just for our personal so-called ‘enjoyment’?”
A decade later, he launched Green Monday in Hong Kong after meeting a friend and discussing the topic of food.
“In 2012, I had this blueprint with multiple entities under the Green Monday platform. That can ultimately enable shift in people’s diets,” says Yeung.
The response was immediate and the movement has been a huge success. Over 400,000 local students, and 1,000 restaurants have already joined Green Monday’s programmes.
But Yeung says that he would be lying if he had envisioned what Green Monday has become today.
In 2015, Green Monday created Green Common, a plant-based concept store, which offers retail items, a place to learn to cook the latest recipes, and a dining area.
Since its launch and even to this day, Yeung has had to demystify vegetarian food which has traditionally been perceived as not so nutritious nor a good source of protein since there is no meat involved.
“Since day one, we have avoided using words such as ‘meatless’ or ‘meat-free.’ That blatantly means you are depriving people of something,” he says.
According to Yeung, another obstacle has been the way vegetarian food has often been presented to meat-eaters that are not appetising enough.
Yeung says people tend to lean towards food that is convenient for them, even if their intake has detrimental wider implications in the long run.
“That’s why I always say green must come with innovation,” Yeung says. “There must be a twist. There must be something that people find that is novel, that is exciting. And that’s value-added.”
To counter the mundane approach to plant-based dishes, Green Monday innovates on an almost daily basis. And every month, they launch new menu items, drumming up excitement among consumers.
For example, the company launched the “right treat” choice in April, unveiling its first all-purpose plant-based pork, which it has called “The Omnipork”.
When asked about the response from the meat industry of his views, Yeung says there have been no confrontations, which he puts down to Hong Kong’s location and the lack of a powerful farm lobby.
Green Monday has also deliberately cultivated the message that it’s still okay for people to eat meat. “We know that it will take time to transition. I always openly share with people the fact that my own wife still eats chicken and fish,” Yeung says.
Today, Green Monday has six Green Common stores in Hong Kong. And it aims to expand further beyond the city’s borders.
“That is not the next step, but the overall direction. But if you look at the more immediate standpoint, it’s to grow in Hong Kong ,” he says.
Still, Yeung remains passionate about what he believes in. He recalls that in the early years he gave talks that only a handful of people attended, but it didn’t dampen his enthusiasm.
“Do something you are passionate about. Authenticity, passion and perseverance, those are key elements to have a chance of success. I won’t say they will guarantee success, but it gives you a chance to succeed in what is a competitive world out there,” Yeung says.
Photo: Berton Chang
