WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

http://time.com/5338287/wework-meat-vegetarian-company-environment/

by postit • 8 years ago

77 293 8 years ago

time.com

exabrial• 8 years ago

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

But, really......

minimaxir2• 8 years ago

Necessary, no, but it's thoughtful.

meowface5• 8 years ago

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.

jp_sc• 8 years ago

I believe sintetic meat will be the most common in 50-100 years, so I don't think so.

nwah13• 8 years ago

And not because of environmental concerns. But moral concerns. Something that is flagrantly immoral would be opposed regardless of environmental questions.

That is important to note because it is not a simple question whether meat is net positive or net negative for the environment. It isn't even clear what it means if something is net positive for the environment.

This is a moral issue, not an eco issue.

intended• 8 years ago

I doubt it. Unless lab grown meat manages to be a competitor, people are going to get meat based protein.

And have you seen the vast variety of food around the world made from meat?

It’s like saying people will give up excel. Possible, but only if some very major hurdles are crossed.

Otherwise ubiquity, biological, and cultural adaptation will win out.

The vegetarian side is underestimating the scope and time scale required.

prepend6• 8 years ago

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...

lozenge2• 8 years ago

On what basis? The highly vegetarian countries are countries with a religious population, and Christianity has never been associated with vegetarianism.

poulsbohemian2• 8 years ago

When I was a traveling consultant, meal and lodging budgets were generally so bad that it really only made sense to eat a single meal per day anyway. While WeWork might be on a moral kick about this, I can only see it becoming common if companies can use it as some kind of cost cutting loophole, in much the same way many have a no-alcohol policy. Yes meat will continue to be a rare and expensive thing, but humans have been eating it for a few millennia now, I have a hard time seeing that go away in the 100 year picture.

minimaxir2• 8 years ago

Original source (w/o sound-on autoplay video): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework-te...

Justin_K• 8 years ago

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

prepend6• 8 years ago

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.

watwut4• 8 years ago

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

prepend6• 8 years ago

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.

null0004• 8 years ago

It's pretty normal when traveling on business or especially going out as a team or a meal with clients. I've yet to have a job as a software engineer that hasn't, although there's usually an implicit or explicit cap.

ahelwer7• 8 years ago

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• 8 years ago

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

busterarm7• 8 years ago

The common justification for this is the comparative anatomy argument that we're primates and primates don't eat meat. These same people have had their heads in the sand for the last 30 years, because it's been found that primates do quite commonly eat meat.

ahelwer7• 8 years ago

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.

bg4• 8 years ago

Apparently lions, tigers and bears aren't aware of the Kantian perfect/imperfect duty divide.

kpwagner• 8 years ago

The default really is not eating anything. Just fast, and fast, and fast, and die.

prepend6• 8 years ago

Obviously those animals are unethical. But once Orca evolve enough to really grok Kant they should come around and die off.

maxbrunsfeld• 8 years ago

Animals don't raise other animals on cruel factory farms.

curo11• 8 years ago

Re: why not "animals that eat other animals," the burden of proof here is with meat-eaters (those against killing people at least). There's a special status we afford to ourselves as humans, so why do we so easily accept the privileges of it, but raise objections when it comes with additional moral responsibilities?

As for the default, I think a simple way to put it is, "you don't have to eat meat."

donutte6• 8 years ago

Should it?

If I argue that it’s immoral to not vaccinate your children, am I failing in not arguing that wild deer should vaccinate their children?

brogrammer5• 8 years ago

And this ladies and gentlemen is why vegans have a reputation for being annoying.

curo11• 8 years ago

Haha, even as an occasional meat eater I liked this comment. If this sort of comment is annoying, maybe time to inquire into the defensiveness. Maybe you have too much "skin" in the game?

ahelwer7• 8 years ago

The annoyance is fascinating to me, because I grew up eating meat and also felt such annoyance. It's an interesting thread to pull if you're into knowing thyself - why do I feel especially aggravated on this topic? Might lead you somewhere.

riku_iki• 8 years ago

If you care at all about moral justifications for your own actions, eating meat is an extremely difficult position to defend.

Let's do it gradually, first move to eating beef: less killed lives per lb of meat. From another hand if we reduce demand, those chickens will not even been born..

ahelwer7• 8 years ago

Oh man, the moral status of possible future entities is like a singularity of very weird conclusions. I would avoid it.

myWindoonn2• 8 years ago

Okay, I'll make a go of it: Which insect-eating-insect relationships are morally justified in the context of farming, and why? Are ladybugs morally superior for their crop-protecting abilities or morally inferior for their consumption of peaceful herbivores?

This is along the same lines as asking a vegan cat-owner what they feed their cat. I know that it's trite, but it's worth pondering.

Edit: 1hr without a reply. Wasn't that difficult.

1_800_UNICORN• 8 years ago

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.

kozikow• 8 years ago

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

Rjevski• 8 years ago

I had the same thing at one of my previous gigs. We used to have (allegedly unhealthy) snacks all the time, then they had some kind of bullshit campaign where they would not restock the snacks for one month and donate the cost to the homeless (fair enough), but guess what happened at the end of that campaign - still no snacks.

pera3• 8 years ago

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

lylecubed• 8 years ago

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.

ntqz• 8 years ago

Plus the increase in toilet paper usage and loss of productive time with all the additional fiber that everyone's getting.

JohnTHaller• 8 years ago

I've tried 3 kinds of kale chips and disliked them all. Then again, I really dislike kale. And I like just about everything. I refer to kale as fart lettuce.

candiodari• 8 years ago

You forgot:

6. Fire the engineer pointing out that the pay of even one member of the finance team during this 2-month project would have paid for nachos for the whole company for 10 years.

gtt• 8 years ago

If such parasitic behaviour (on part of finance team in this example) is tolerated by the upper management it is better for productive developer to update his resume and spend time on networking and seeking the new opportunities. The nachos are just signs of things to come.

Animats• 8 years ago

Will WeLive dorms also be made meat-free?

stephengillie• 8 years ago

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.

CodeTheInternet2• 8 years ago

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

lozenge2• 8 years ago

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.

charmides8• 8 years ago

"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.

everdev2• 8 years ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524534

jwilk• 8 years ago

(0 comments)

everdev2• 8 years ago

or 10...

Waterluvian2• 8 years ago

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.

inertiatic2• 8 years ago

Only exactly as equal a choice for the individual doing the eating. It's less of a choice for the other beings involved.

lolsal5• 8 years ago

I'm curious about this mindset - it seems like you object to eating animals because they lack a choice. Do you have any problem with wild animals eating other wild animals (who presumably also have less of a choice)? I'm not trying to trick you or trap you, just genuinely curious.

drb912• 8 years ago

If only the white rhino had chosen to be eaten!

lolsal5• 8 years ago

Your comment is much more polite than my knee-jerk reaction was going to be. I am thankful you made it before I made a poor comment.

I have no problem recognizing climate change and the impact humanity has had on climate change, but for some reason my brain dismisses a vegetarian diet for the sake of affecting climate change as an absurdity. I don't know why. I feel I am open minded out other things related to climate change, or vegan/vegetarian-ism. I don't doubt the science behind it at all, I just find it silly for some reason. I raise livestock on my own land for food and also hunt, maybe that bias has something to do with it.

busterarm7• 8 years ago

My comment was going to be https://vimeo.com/9802538

God, PCU was lightyears ahead of its time.

bunderbunder4• 8 years ago

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.

toomuchtodo• 8 years ago

Is it okay if my business only allows the expensing of meat, and refuses to allow carbohydrates for health reasons?

EDIT: Fair enough! Not contrarian, just finding the line. What interesting times we live in.

thaumasiotes• 8 years ago

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.

whack• 8 years ago

That's a pretty great analogy. Lots of businesses have a no-alcohol policy. No one even bats an eye when it's mentioned. I hardly see anyone complaining about such companies pushing a lifestyle agenda.

Waterluvian2• 8 years ago

Refusing to serve meat == refusing to serve vegetables. Imagine if the inverse were true. People would flip.

All I want to convey is that I believe eating an omnivorous diet is an equal dietary preference to eating a herbivorous one. Deserving of the same protections, if any.

downandout6• 8 years ago

Serving food that doesn't happen to contain meat isn't forcing you to be vegetarian

Sure it is. There will be situations where employees have no choice but to eat company-sponsored food. Mandatory working lunches, dinner with potential clients (I’d love for them to take me to dinner as a potential client/partner and tell me I can’t order a steak...), etc. In those situations, they are indeed “forcing you to be a vegetarian”.

seorphates• 8 years ago

I don't know. If they're not going to expense your meals because you're away on official business and chose wrong then I'm not sure I'd be down with that. As for on premise and coordinated business events, sure, I'm down with that. Business trips where you're someplace new well away from home "if you want us to pay for a meal while we send you to this place then no meat" is.. a little too close to too personal. That seems mean and self-righteous. I don't think I wouldn't be interested in weWork even were I a vegetarian.

We can all try or not. Screw coercion, especially in excess.

kyledrake2• 8 years ago

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.

jlarocco3• 8 years ago

I guess I missed how anybody being "forced" to do anything.

Their employees are still free to buy all the meat they want.

juancn• 8 years ago

They're forced for example in the context of a business trip.

kyledrake2• 8 years ago

Is this the same conversation we're going to have when the company says no IUD costs can come from your health insurance plan?

internet_user• 8 years ago

and you are free to buy your own health insurance!

koala_man5• 8 years ago

Forcing your employees to only eat certain kinds of food is an intensely terrible thing to do.

I absolutely agree. Fortunately, no one is doing that. WeWork employees can eat as much meat as they want. It's just that WeWork won't pay for it.

apple4ever6• 8 years ago

Actually, they are doing that. Its an implicit force.

downandout6• 8 years ago

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.

curo11• 8 years ago

What if your company said that they are starting a program to reimburse solar panel installation, but that program doesn't cover reimbursement for gas. Would your argument be that most of the world consumes gas, so they're "forcefully impose extreme views on a whim."

poulsbohemian2• 8 years ago

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.

busterarm7• 8 years ago

WeWork's history of firing any employee even hinting at collective bargaining or discussing employee rights in general is well known.

Whatever happened with that unpaid overtime lawsuit they got slapped with?

LarryDarrell• 8 years ago

Heh, try being a vegetarian in the Midwest if you want to feel real intolerant workplace culture.

curo11• 8 years ago

a) force WeWork owners to pay for something they're morally opposed to paying for b) force staff to do what exactly? Pay for their own meat?

temp546796805444• 8 years ago

I'm pro-choice.

The exact same argument is used for requiring companies and insurance plans to pay for abortion.

donutte6• 8 years ago

“Intensely terrible” is one way to phrase “illegal under the ADA”...

I would assume there will be accommodations made for folks with dietary restrictions that require them to eat meat, whether that’s through a simple waiver or a massive lawsuit.

curo11• 8 years ago

No one's going to get sued for a reimbursement policy. They don't have an obligation to reimburse, and this falls so far outside of fair employment laws. HN is going nuts on this one.

brianpgordon• 8 years ago

It says in the article that "Individuals requiring “medical or religious” allowances are being referred to the company’s policy team to discuss options."

IneffablePigeon• 8 years ago

I'm also on a FODMAP diet - I've started bringing my own food in to work because I can't eat what they serve at work on this diet. I really don't see a problem. It's impossible to cater to every possible taste, allergy, intolerance and belief. It's nice to make an effort to cater for as many people as possible, but nobody's forcing anybody to eat anything here.

It is possible to go meat free on the fodmap diet, by the way (although people's definitions of the diet are admittedly inconsistent, and it is tricky). To be honest, meat is one the the things I find hard to eat because it's so often cooked with garlic.

PKop4• 8 years ago

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).

hnaccy2• 8 years ago

Why is speciesism acceptable but not racism?

PKop4• 8 years ago

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.

spinnn• 8 years ago

What evidence do you have for this? Along with the environmental devastation and the obscene cruelty of factory farming, the overwhelmingly negative health effects of meat and dairy consumption are the third pillar in the triumvirate of reasons to go vegan, or at the very least to limit and reduce consumption of animal products. For example, the World Health Organization classifies processed meats (bacon, salami etc) as group 1 carcinogens, meaning they are known to cause cancer. Processed meats may be the worst, but the health impacts of other meats and dairy products aren't a whole lot better. Combine those facts with the plethora of meat substitutes and plant-based dining options now available, and plant-based diets are increasingly becoming an easy and obvious choice.

db48x• 8 years ago

Seems like a breach of contract to me.

nodesocket2• 8 years ago

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.

nkrisc2• 8 years ago

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.

nodesocket2• 8 years ago

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

PKop4• 8 years ago

It's not at all strange for many people, and exactly the opposite view is held by them.. that eating all vegetarian is unhealthy, and all or mostly meat is the healthiest.

I mean, we can provide some supporting evidence to support our claims, but certainly your statement is not uncontroversial..

rfrey2• 8 years ago

I have no particular stance on WeWork's policy, but this argument seems pretty strained. You seem to be saying that if implementing the opposite of policy A would be unacceptable, then implementing policy A is hypocrisy.

That doesn't make sense to me. At the extreme end, take my moral stance against killing other people. "Imagine the opposite - having a moral stance FOR killing people - there would be outrage! Hypocrisy."

Or with a less extreme example, say as a company I mandate the use of electric cars on business trips (assuming rental companies had them available). Many people would think the opposite policy - say, mandating vehicles getting 12mpg or less - would be an outrage. Would that make the electric-car-preferred policy hypocritical?

It seems like our entire discourse now - especially our political discourse - is one big search for the big Hypocrisy Gotcha moment.

VBprogrammer4• 8 years ago

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."

charmides8• 8 years ago

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

proofbygazing6• 8 years ago

committing reimbursement fraud

lol, nobody takes reimbursements this seriously

mkempe• 8 years ago

"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.

ivankirigin• 8 years ago

Let alone that lower demand might lower price and increase consumption from others, keeping net meat production the same.

stvswn• 8 years ago

Also, if a group of urban westerners WERE to stop eating such a large quantity of meat en masse, it would have the effect of lowering the price of meat and not the effect of simply reducing the meat eaten in the world. Most of that meat will just get bought by others for a slightly cheaper price. Making protein cheaper for poorer people in the world would arguably be the best outcome of this experiment if the magnitude were anything close to their estimates.

jlebar2• 8 years ago

Also, if a group of urban westerners WERE to stop eating such a large quantity of meat en masse, it would have the effect of lowering the price of meat and not the effect of simply reducing the meat eaten in the world.

This is equivalent to claiming that demand for meat is purely elastic and that the market for meat is frictionless with respect to shipping worldwide.

What evidence do you have for these claims?

proofbygazing6• 8 years ago

You're right to consider the marginal effect that this might have on the purchasing habits of meat eaters, but you're wrong to ignore the marginal effect that the fall in prices will have on meat producers.

A fall in price will always reduce the quantity supplied, ceteris paribus.

jlebar2• 8 years ago

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.

rfrey2• 8 years ago

I read mkempe's comment as agreeing that it sounds pretty darned good... in fact too good to be credible.

jhayward2• 8 years ago

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

The point is that WeWork is being either credulous, fraudulent, or incompetent, because it isn't possible for this 2,000 person company to account for 0.1% of global CO2.

drb912• 8 years ago

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.

DMac87• 8 years ago

Even more obviously absurd: 15 million animals saved is how many per employee?

timavr• 8 years ago

Hmmm in Sydney wework charges 850 per desk per month.

After paying rent, rice is the only option.

teaneedz7• 8 years ago

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.

charmides8• 8 years ago

It's the do-gooder derogation effect: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550611415695

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-love-and-war/2017...

"But what was especially interesting was that those who viewed vegetarians more negatively were also more likely to expect that vegetarians would view them negatively, suggesting that a fear of moral reproach might underlie negative views of vegetarians. Supporting this idea, when the threat of moral reproach was experimentally manipulated, the researchers found that it increased negative evaluations of vegetarians."

ChickeNES• 8 years ago

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...

teaneedz7• 8 years ago

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.

drcharris• 8 years ago

Here's some criticism.

https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/12/starbucks-straw-ban-will-...

I hope there's more to Starbucks' plan than this, and that they've got a better lid in the works.

pcunite• 8 years ago

"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• 8 years ago

Here's one example from the European Commission: 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

user59944612• 8 years ago

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.

watwut4• 8 years ago

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

throwaway426079• 8 years ago

Could you expand on that? I'm a lifelong vegetarian so I don't have a frame of reference for how satiated a meat eater feels. I wonder what I'm missing.

chc• 8 years ago

I think you are drastically overestimating the cost of legumes.

nAwYz• 8 years ago

Could you point me to research regarding this? It sounds pretty anecdotal

glass_of_water2• 8 years ago

It probably depends on what you make. Nuts and store-bought seitan are indeed quite expensive, but lentils and legumes are quite cheap. Where I live (major US city), tofu is only $1 a pack.

sarreph• 8 years ago

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)

loco5niner• 8 years ago

Rice, legumes, etc. are very cheap.

hinkley3• 8 years ago

Just order the dish with black truffles. Problem solved.

shadunkle2• 8 years ago

Considering the magnitude of PR this has and will generate, any PR affects, whether positive or negative, will drastically dwarf any cost savings. If they are doing this out of purely self-interest, PR would be the primary concern, not cost.

tedunangst2• 8 years ago

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

What about dolphin?

gamblor956• 8 years ago

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.

bunderbunder4• 8 years ago

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

tzs• 8 years ago

Squid are pretty smart, too, so probably should be included if one is using intelligence as a grounds for deciding what is food.

underbluewaters• 8 years ago

I really don't understand the moral argument for vegetarianism that excludes seafood. There are plenty of fish and marine invertebrates that are as smart/sentient/feeling as a chicken or cow. In many cases the environmental impact of their take is also much worse.

AdamM123• 8 years ago

Alligator might be an end around also :)

pkaye• 8 years ago

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.

busterarm7• 8 years ago

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

mhb• 8 years ago

What's their position on plastic straws?

koala_man5• 8 years ago

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• 8 years ago

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

koala_man5• 8 years ago

Not sure what you're getting at.

J5892• 8 years ago

It's a hell of a lot easier to install a charger in a parking lot than it is to install a gas station.

Also, there may be perks/subsidies offered by the local government for installing EV chargers.

koala_man5• 8 years ago

You don't need an on-site gas station to let people expense gas. It's actually the opposite: employees generally expense things because they cannot get them on-site.

proofbygazing6• 8 years ago

Definitely weirder. There is well-established precedent for expensing food, which matters. Also, food is a bare-necessity for staying alive while traveling on your company's behalf, so manipulating people's options there is bound to produce blowback.

ArtWomb• 8 years ago

"Meatspace Meeting Space Bans Meats In Spaces"

ourmandave• 8 years ago

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

curo11• 8 years ago

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?

temp546796805444• 8 years ago

Yes, they should be forced to pay for the things normally required of an employer. Including reasonable meals during business travel. The individual employee can choose on their own to be vegan or vegetarian, or to eat meat.

Why should the individual rights of the employee be surpassed by the rights of the powerful employer?

curo11• 8 years ago

If you mean "rights" in a legal context, nowhere does an employee have a right to be reimbursed. The closest governing law here is fair employment, and this isn't anywhere close to that.

edit: so long as work-related expenses doesn't sum out to a minimum wage violation

jhayward2• 8 years ago

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.

mikeash2• 8 years ago

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.

thekashifmalik• 8 years ago

I like the way you phrased that; it's perfectly neutral.

AdamM123• 8 years ago

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

I'm pretty sure this is the exact argument by social conservatives when it comes to mandated birth control coverage (not taking a stance simply stating a fact).

Another point, not related to my response, is that non-meat dishes at a restaurant are similarly priced to some meat dishes, like a club sandwich and a salad. So the argument from a price standpoint is moot imo.

I can understand not wanting to do it at company sponsored events but seems wack to not do it for an individual's meal. I think this will promote shaming on employees who eat meat.

null0004• 8 years ago

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

They're making a portion of wages/compensation contingent on eating vegetarian. If someone doesn't want to eat vegetarian when out on business, they have to pay for it themselves, where as a meal costing the exact same but lacking meat would be. I'd understand if it were a company based on vegetarian/vegan products, much like I'd understand a church choosing not to buy health care reimbursing birth control, but this doesn't appear to be that.

That said, I'm less concerned about meat at company events - the company can choose to cater whatever it wants - in much the same way I'd be fine with a friend hosting a party that didn't serve meat, but would consider it a pretty obnoxious faux pas to offer to buy dinner for me, but then ditch the check because I ordered a dish with chicken in it. Sure, I might stay friends with them, but it's a pretty good indicator of what kind of person they are.

most companies have restrictions and rules surrounding their expensing

These tend to be pretty banal and don't really take a moral stance on whatever the employee's buying - "don't spend more than $x", "don't eat more than x times per day", "fly economy", etc. This would be more akin to "You cannot reimburse food containing Kale", "you cannot reimburse food bought at Olive Garden", "You must fly with Alaska on business trips", and so on. Maybe technically legal, but super obnoxious and arbitrary.

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

Yes, I don't want my employer withholding compensation based on their own morals. See: companies refusing to pay for insurance covering birth control. Also consider hypotheticals where the otherwise secular employer doesn't pay for meals from non-halal/kosher restaurants, or which only stocks raw water in the company fridges, or which only allow employees to expense stays at hotels if they attend a sermon during work hours. Some of those might be illegal, some not (I'm honestly not sure on employment law for most of those) but all are just super obnoxious and disrespectful to their employees.

My employer has enough control over my life already. They definitely shouldn't also punish me financially for having different opinions than them.

To put a point on it: I don't think this particular case should necessarily rise to the level of "illegal", but I do consider it rude to the employees for taking away autonomy and implicitly disrespecting choices the employee makes. It's also overall pretty narcissistic of them to assume they both have the right opinions, and those opinions are so right that they should inflict them on their employees.

At the very least, I'm glad they're advertising this - now I know where not to work.

teaneedz7• 8 years ago

I really wonder if most critics would feel the same way after spending a week in a slaughter house?

Drastic times require wake up calls. Maybe folks will do some research and learn more about why this company implemented the policy.

If everyone had to slaughter their own meal, I think there would be less criticism...at least more understanding on why consumers are demanding more vegan options. At least watch some videos.

There's the option to stop working for the company too if one feels strongly about it.

Data shows that consumers, especially younger generations are moving forward toward plant-based options. A&W Canada is sold out of the Beyond Burger.

Times are changing.

vfc12• 8 years ago

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.

proofbygazing6• 8 years ago

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• 8 years ago

This is completely unenforceable.

Just claim that you ordered the dish without meat.

bonesmoses• 8 years ago

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

scott00• 8 years ago

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).

munificent2• 8 years ago

I don't see why they would risk that for a cause entirely unconnected to their business

Maybe they just really believe in it.

proofbygazing6• 8 years ago

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.

cjbprime2• 8 years ago

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.

fulafel2• 8 years ago

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

cjbprime2• 8 years ago

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?

AdamM123• 8 years ago

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

mreome3• 8 years ago

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?

ravitation2• 8 years ago

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• 8 years ago

"> bare necessities"

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

pera3• 8 years ago

If the "monetary incentive" is, in other words, to provide something for free to every employee then I don't see any inherent problem. What I do think is an actual problem is making an employee pay for any potential extra expenses during a business trip.

mreome3• 8 years ago

I agree. I think there is only really an issue when it is a monetary 'disincentive', i.e. it's a situation where the employee is effectively being paid less then what was expected based on the work-pay agreement (both in terms of actual contract and social/industry norms). If it's a monetary 'incentive' then it's adding something in addition to what was expected.

Also, it's an even bigger issue when the scale of the disincentive is largely a result of decisions outside the employees control. An employee often has limited control over when and how long a business trip may last.

Basically, encouraging people with an additional 'perk' seems reasonable to me, but encouraging them with what amounts to a 'fine' is not.

qubax• 8 years ago

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-...

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.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11581770/Hair-aphid...

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

shadunkle2• 8 years ago

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

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

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

teaneedz7• 8 years ago

Your rant is missing lots of facts my friend.

Most vegans by definition are ethically against the abuse of today's scaled animal agriculture farming techniques. This isn't a perfect world, but most people are either unaware or choose to be disconnected from how farm animals are regularly abused. All lives matter, but come on, let's not discredit the routine torture taking place on such animals.

It's not sustainable and is ethically wrong to most people who come face to face with it.

Defending animal agriculture is outdated and simply on the wrong side of history. Any online search can pull up why more people are looking into vegetarianism and why demand is increasing for vegan options.

Anyone can try and defend scaled animal agriculture, but the world is moving speedily beyond that.

sabarn01• 8 years ago

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.

tracker12• 8 years ago

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• 8 years ago

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..

tracker12• 8 years ago

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.

cimmanom• 8 years ago

It sounds like they're making exceptions for employees with religious or health needs that make this an undue burden.

Markoff• 8 years ago

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

wchandler• 8 years ago

Easy, stay away from that company.

simonsarris• 8 years ago

“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.

sunstone• 8 years ago

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

mcintyre1994• 8 years ago

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.

proofbygazing6• 8 years ago

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.

fareesh• 8 years ago

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

WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

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