Brighter Green
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COP26: Glasgow, Scotland
Brighter Green Official Side Event
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Food Forward
2019 United States Forum
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Discussion Paper
Fast-changing Food Environments and Public Health
What's New
Brighter Green at COP28 in Dubai
Brighter Green is attending the United Nations’ twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties (COP), to be held between November 30 and December 12, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
This year’s COP involves the Global Stocktake, a process that measures how each government is (or more likely is not) on track to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), a set of targets each nation agreed to at COP21 in Paris in 2015. For COP28, Brighter Green is part of the Food and Climate Action Group, which is urging the Stocktake to feature food systems and animal agriculture more prominently in NDCs. Thanks to the work of youth climate activists, in coalition with other groups (among them Brighter Green), the COP28 presidency has confirmed that, for the first time, two-thirds of the food served at the global summit will be vegan and vegetarian. Special thanks to Caroline Wimberly, former Brighter Green program manager, who is a key part of this effort. For the second year, the Food4Climate Pavilion will be organized at COP28, spotlighting a range of food systems and climate issues spanning production and consumption, animal welfare, biodiversity protection, livelihoods, and public health.
As part of its engagement at COP28, Brighter Green is co-hosting an official side event, entitled “Food Systems Transformation: Elevating Healthy Diets and Protein Diversification as Climate Solutions.” The side event will be on Monday December 4, 1:15–2:45 pm local time, in SE Room 7 in the Blue Zone. To watch this side event (and all other side events at COP) click here.
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Brighter Green Associates at the Africa Animal Welfare Conference, Rwanda
Brighter Green supported the participation of our colleagues Charles Ssekyewa from Uganda, Judy Muriithi from Kenya, and South African Tozie Zofuka, executive director of CAAWO, at the Seventh Africa Animal Welfare Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, in September 2023.
Professor Ssekyewa, who teaches agro-ecology at St. Lawrence University in Entebbe, gave a presentation on S3F and called for a halt to factory farming to mitigate climate change and ensure animal welfare. Brighter Green also facilitated a presentation by Jean Paul Gisa from One Acre Fund in Rwanda on their alternative protein pilot project with Rwandan farmers. Delegates at the conference are pictured.
November 16, 2023Brighter Green Takes to the Streets for the Climate
Brighter Green joined Friends of the Earth, Mercy For Animals, ProVeg International, World Animal Protection, The Plant Based Treaty, and Compassion in World Farming at the March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City on September 17, 2023.
November 16, 2023Mia MacDonald at NYU and Animal Grantmakers Conference
Brighter Green executive director Mia MacDonald is teaching a course entitled “Animals, Food, and Sustainability” to graduate students in Animal Studies at New York University this Fall semester. The course explores the science, ethics, and policy of raising animals for food, and how existing policy-making processes can accelerate protections for animals and nature.
Mia also moderated a panel called “Animals and Climate Change: Multi-Species Perspectives” at the 2023 Animal Grantmakers conference in October 2023. The panel featured Chris Green, executive director, Animal Legal Defense Fund; Dr. Becca Franks, assistant professor of Environmental Studies, New York University; Amelia Linn, director of global policy, Mercy For Animals; and Dr. Shaina Sadai, a postdoctoral fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists (via video).
November 16, 2023
Food Systems Transformation
As part of its engagement at COP28, Brighter Green is co-hosting an official side event, entitled “Food Systems Transformation: Elevating Healthy Diets and Protein Diversification as Climate Solutions.” On the panel will be representatives and colleagues from the following partner organizations: ProVeg International, the Buddhist Tzu Chi Organization, Compassion In World Farming, the World Conference of Religions for Peace, and the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahai of the U.S. The side event will be on Monday December 4, 1:15–2:45 pm local time, in SE Room 7 in the Blue Zone. To watch this side event (and all other side events at COP) click here.
Recent Events
Watch: Ecological Justice and the Right to Health Virtual Panel
Watch the panel! Brighter Green and partners hosted a virtual event that explored making changes in our society, and indeed our world, to help people, animals, and the planet be healthy and thrive. Learn More
April 27, 2022No More Omissions: Addressing the Ambition & Scale of Change Required in Global Food Systems
This event was live streamed on November 9, 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow Scotland.
Brighter Green participated in an official COP26 side event called, No More Omissions: Addressing the Ambition and Scale of Change Required in Global Food Systems.
You can watch the event in the embedded player below, or on YouTube.
November 3, 2021A Global Dialogue Across Borders: Best practices – and bold visions – for ensuring sustainable, climate friendly food is equitable and accessible, and the essential role of international cooperation and youth activism in bringing this about
Food and agricultural systems have an enormous impact on human lives, especially in vulnerable communities, the lives of other animals, and the ecosystems and climate on which all species depend.
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Our Mission
Brighter Green is a public policy action tank that works to raise awareness of and encourage policy action on issues that span the environment, animals, and sustainability. Based in New York, Brighter Green works in the U.S. and internationally with a focus on the countries of the global South and a strong commitment to ensuring and expanding equity and rights.
On its own and in partnership with other organizations and individuals, Brighter Green generates and incubates research and project initiatives that are both visionary and practical. It produces publications, websites, documentary films, and programs to illuminate public debate among policy-makers, activists, communities, influential leaders, and the media, with the goal of social transformation at local and international levels.
The Asia Program
Linking activists and organizations from across Asia and other parts of the world, the Asia Program focuses on the development of sustainable food systems through knowledge exchange and public education. Our work focuses on China, but we are expanding to countries across the continent. We have produced documentaries, published policy papers, organized speaking tours, and hosted conferences to foster critical, collaborative engagement on climate change and food systems across Asia.
Global Factory Farming
Intensive animal agriculture constitutes one of the greatest contributors to climate change. In an effort to expand awareness of the negative effects of factory farming, Brighter Green has produced policy papers, briefs, and short documentary videos that examine the globalization of factory farming through the lens of climate change, with a focus on the Global South.
International Climate Advocacy
Brighter Green collaborates with organizations from all over the world to bring attention to climate change and sustainable development. Through our International Climate Advocacy program, we empower individuals and groups to work together to resist deforestation, cope with erratic rainfall, and foster adaptation and resilience to climate change by creating paths to sustainable development.
Vegan America Project
Combining writing, presentation, and research, the Vegan America Project uses veganism as a lens through which to examine complex issues related to climate change. This project focuses on food security, animal welfare, and social transformation, and considers how the United States might reimagine food systems in the Anthropocene.