The Golden Globes Will Serve 100% Vegan Menu To Promote Climate Sustainability

The Golden Globes will go vegan for this year’s ceremony, which will be held this Sunday 5th January. Since 1944, the prestigious awards ceremony recognises excellence in film and television across the globe, and this year marks the very first evening in which the menu will feature only 100% plant-based dishes in a bid to promote environmental sustainability. Even the off-camera buffet will be all vegan. The move signifies that awareness about the climate crisis is at an all time high. From the fashion industry to youth climate strikes and now the Hollywood scene, the entire world is finally picking up the planet’s single biggest and most urgent issue. 

Since 1944, the Golden Globe Awards are annually bestowed by 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which represents one of the most prestigious and prized accolades to be won in the film and television industry. This year, for the 77th Golden Globes ceremony, the HFPA have announced that the dinner served will be an entirely vegan menu to lower the carbon footprint of the event and bring greater awareness to environmental sustainability. The move is a last-minute change from the original menu previewed in December, which featured fish. 

“We had the menu with fish. Then we got together with the HFPA and they wanted to make this change to send a good message. It’s definitely the first Golden Globes that has gone vegan,” said executive chef of Beverly Hilton Matthew Morgan in a statement. 

Read: We Could End Global Warming If Just 20% In Rich Countries Went Vegan & Cut Food Waste

The revised 100% plant-based menu will feature a chilled golden beet soup topped with locally grown amaranth and chervil, followed by a vegan wild mushroom risotto with purple and green Brussels sprouts, carrots and pea shoots. To finish off the meal, guests will dine on a meat and dairy-free version of the opera cake, a French-style coffee-syrup soaked sponge cake dessert. Made entirely from plant ingredients, the 3-course dinner will come at a fraction of the carbon footprint and environmental cost on our planet compared to a meal with meat and dairy. 

The commitment to serving only vegan food will extend to the buffet tables that are hidden from cameras during the course of the evening. These are set up near the open bars, where the late-arrivals can grab a 100% plant-based bite to eat.

According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), animal agriculture accounts for 18% of all greenhouse gases generated from human activity, which is more than that of all global transport combined. Besides producing large amounts of carbon emissions that fuel our climate emergency, animal agriculture also uses up vast amounts of land and water while contaminating topsoil and waterways. 

Read: Veganuary – Going Vegan Is The Most Impactful Pledge To Make This January

In addition to ditching meat and dairy to reduce the carbon footprint of the ceremony, the HFPA are also taking other green measures, which include reusing the red carpet at future events and replacing plastic bottles with glass versions. “The climate crisis is surrounding us and we were thinking about the new year and the new decade…about what we can do to send a signal,” explained Lorenzo Soria, the president of the HFPA. 

These moves indicate that global consciousness about the severity of our climate emergency is at an all time high as mainstream organisations, companies, notable figures and brands are finally making positive steps in the right direction. The influential fashion magazine Vogue, for instance, opened up a brand new position for a Global Sustainability Director to lead its environmental policy and drive greener change in the industry. Most recently, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge debuted a new annual Earthshot Prize, which aims to award the most innovative solutions to environmental issues for the next decade.

Lead image courtesy of Leslie Grow / The Beverly Hilton.