WeWork Bans Meat

https://sfgate.com/business/article/WeWork-tells-employees-meat-is-permanently-off-13073731.php

by bleachedsleet • 8 years ago

24 38 8 years ago

This is kind of insane, even by virtue-signalling standards.

What business is it of the company what kind of food I eat? Alcohol restrictions make enough sense, but beyond that how is it at all reasonable to place these kinds of restrictions on their employees, especially when traveling for business? Some cities simply don't cater to the vegan market on a large scale. Sometimes you don't have as much of a choice what restaurant you're going to.

How will they even know what you ate? Receipts from restaurants often don't have that much detail. Are their Accounts Payable people going to scrutinize every receipt and google it up to determine if it's vegan compliant?

All I know is that if I'm looking for coworking space, it ain't gonna be from these guys.

smt882• 8 years ago

What business is it of the company what kind of food I eat?

They aren't policing employees' eating habits or anyone else's. They've just decided not to spend company funds on meat.

There are valid social, political, and environmental reasons to avoid most or all meat. A company should be able to decide not to spend their money on something both ethical and socially beneficial that won't harm anyone else in the process.

How will they even know what you ate?

Some restaurants have line items, but most likely this is a marketing tactic more than a rigid policy that will be easily or thoroughly enforced.

Some cities simply don't cater to the vegan market on a large scale. Sometimes you don't have as much of a choice what restaurant you're going to.

Where did you get vegan? They seem to be allowing expensing of vegetarian food.

And when do people not get to choose where they eat? And when they do, why would it be a place that serves zero vegetarian options?

Also, they seem to be pursuing a pescetarian policy (no mammals or birds, but fish are OK).

rsj_hn2• 8 years ago

There are not valid environment or social reasons to avoid meat.

Cattle is the most efficient way to produce calories in a dry region in which water rather than land is the binding constraint (Western U.S., middle east, north africa). Crops are the most efficient way to produce calories in regions where land rather than water is the binding constraint (e.g. China, Northwest Europe).

The idea that one is necessarily more efficient than the other as a food is pure B.S. It just depends on where that food is grown.

There is a reason why the societies in the fertile crescent began with cattle culture, and continued to raise cattle in areas where water is more costly than land. Dry areas like that produce scrub and grasses, which is inedible to humans, but edible by cows. That's why we graze the cows in areas where we can't eat the natural crops, and instead we eat the cows. This is the most efficient method, most environmentally friendly method, and is the long standing practice of all societies living in dry regions.

This notion that the peculiar environment constraints that bind in northwest europe bind globally is either ignorance or bigotry.

Really, if they wanted to virtue signal, they should ban cotton, which takes up a lot of water, and is grown in areas that shouldn't be growing cotton. As good a case can be made against grains as against cattle.

This is just bumper sticker virtue signalling and has no place in the business world.

cosmie• 8 years ago

And when do people not get to choose where they eat? And when they do, why would it be a place that serves zero vegetarian options?

When entertaining clients. Which are also the majority of my T&E reimbursements. If I invite a client to a lunch or dinner meeting, there's absolutely no way I'm going to dictate what they can and can't order. But if they order meat, is my expense report going to get rejected?

I'm not in sales, so I don't have outrageous meal expenses. But I do a fair bit of client servicing and I'd raise hell if my company created a policy that introduces ambiguity and risk around whether or not I'll have to eat the cost every time I'm expected to have a meal with a client.

doctorwho4• 8 years ago

If they want to avoid being branded as brain dead hypocrites, they can't decide to allow one dietary choice over another. This is really just a hippie driven religious debate in lab grown meat's clothing.

fjsolwmv4• 8 years ago

Why would an alcohol restriction make sense instead? Why is alcohol worse than broccoli, hamburger, or ice cream?

Why is what they feed employees an important factor in a vendor? For example, would you check to see if other vendors pay their employees more, that might be more valuable than any lost reimbursement for meat at company meals? Do you check to see how well they treat people of all genders, races, and sexual orientations, or are obligated carnivores the only class of concern?

core-questions4• 8 years ago

Why is alcohol worse than broccoli, hamburger, or ice cream?

You do know what it does, right?

Do you check to see how well they treat people of all genders, races, and sexual orientations, or are obligated carnivores the only class of concern?

Really not concerned with any of that at all. What I want is for employers to not spend their time telling me what I should think, or be, or eat. They can tell me what they want me to do, and what they're going to pay me for it, that's it.

eevilspock2• 8 years ago

virtue-signalling

You're begging the question. By labeling it virtue signaling, you've already dismissed it as false, as not a genuinely held moral position.

What if someone honestly believed that giving up meat was the moral thing to do, given the current conditions of the world?

Remember that nearly all of the things we now hold as self-evident (racial equality, gender equality, sexual orientation equality, etc) were once radical / crazy positions. Were the people who were ahead of the morality curve virtue signaling?

doctorwho4• 8 years ago

Moral positions are not facts, they are beliefs. if a person believes meat is bad, then that individual can give up meat. Done. That was easy wasn't it? If they want other people to join the movement, they they can shout about it from the rooftops. However, nothing gives them the right to force their beliefs on anyone else? That's what religious hypocrites do. Think about how most of the other problems you mentioned were created. Religious fundamentalists forcing their beliefs on someone else.

core-questions4• 8 years ago

Are you trying to say that nothing can be labelled as virtue-signalling, then?

The moment you start broadcasting moral positions as corporate policies, you're virtue signalling. It's not always negative, or false, but it's certainly a marketing move.

early all of the things we now hold as self-evident (racial equality, gender equality, sexual orientation equality, etc)

Not all of us believe in all of that in the sense in which you mean it.

Were the people who were ahead of the morality curve virtue signaling?

Were and still are.

tracker12• 8 years ago

I'm allergic to legumes and diabetic... WeWork can go to hell.

mattl3• 8 years ago

WeWork is just saying they won’t pay expenses on meat. They’re not banning anyone from eating meat.

tracker12• 8 years ago

And company meetings and events?

Rebelgecko2• 8 years ago

So they're just financially penalizing people that do

doctorwho4• 8 years ago

Then why not just remove all reimbursements for food instead of penalizing just one group?

anonytrary• 8 years ago

The startup has told its 6,000 global workers that they will no longer be able to expense meals including meat, and that it won’t pay for any red meat, poultry or pork at WeWork events

Title seems to be clickbaity -- they aren't banning meat, they are just no longer subsidizing it.

Rebelgecko2• 8 years ago

Has anyone done the back of the envelope math on this? If you send an employee across the country and stop them from eating meat, does that offset the environmental damage of their flight?

throw_away2• 8 years ago

This doesn't hold up at all.

Cross country flight: .61 metric tons = 1344 lbs (https://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx )

1 hamburger: 4 lbs (http://www.businessinsider.com/one-hamburger-environment-res... )

So, one flight is 336 hamburgers (in terms of CO2).

fjsolwmv4• 8 years ago

Obviously not, but those factors are independent. They arent flying people out for the purpose of finding vegetarian meals.

fjsolwmv4• 8 years ago

Shaking out all the rabid anti-vegetarianists might who kneejerk response with seething hatred and without reading, might enough of the business benefit to overcome any costs of this policy.

spraak2• 8 years ago

This policy aside, I think it's strange that fish is not considered meat...

geoalchimista• 8 years ago

<sarcasm>They may have some Catholics sitting on their board</sarcasm>

spraak2• 8 years ago

Mic the Vegan just released a relevant [1] video today called "The Real Cost of Meat" [2]

[1] it isn't clear to me that WeWork did this for cost or ideals, but I thought I'd share in any case

[2] https://youtu.be/tA9f2JU5bRs

gregoriol• 8 years ago

This seems to be a "startup PR act": they had to find some "new cool thing" to make people talk about them, that's what WeWork do, that's what most startups do.

It's not about money, it's not about virtue: they could as well have made flamethrowers or a tiny submarine or put ping-pong tables everywhere. It's a media distraction: everyone is focused on this now, and not on the real goal/activities (or finances) of the company.

Good PR job.

detaro• 8 years ago

duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17526695

also some here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524534

WeWork Bans Meat

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