I am pleased to say that this magazine is accompanied, for the first time, by Our Impact – a report showing the progress made by The Vegan Society towards our goals and objectives throughout 2021. This is an important development for the society as we work to become more transparent with our members about our outputs, shared achievements and the progress made towards long term impact. As you are well aware, as an organisation we have an ambitious vision: a world in which humans do not exploit other animals. This kind of reporting will allow us to better chart our progress and stay on track via measuring specific key goals and objectives.

From our work to transform the market to create and properly label vegan products, to our campaigns aimed at educating the general public, to our policy work encouraging government to adopt vegan solutions, to our services providing expert help to individuals needing support – everyone at The Vegan Society is pulling together and taking steps towards the future we want to see. I want to thank staff, volunteers, and you, our members, for your support and efforts in helping us to meet this goal.

Our AGM is taking place purely online once more this year. This was a decision we took in order to protect members and staff from the continuing risk of Covid-19.

More information about the AGM can be found on page 27. I encourage all of you to take part in using your vote this year – both on candidates for election, and on the proposed resolutions.

The Vegan Society cares deeply about the future of our planet and all those we share it with. We are committed to operating as a responsible, sustainable organisation which means we are conscious of the social, economic and environmental impact in all that we do. With this in mind, we are very pleased to announce that we are now working with Seacourt to print and distribute The Vegan.

Seacourt are the UK’s leading environmental printing company and work closely with their clients to ensure that all material is produced with the lightest environmental footprint possible. In fact:

• Their presses are 100% free from water, alcohol and harmful chemicals

• They use inks which are vegan and free from volatile organic compounds

• They are powered by 100% renewable energy

• They send zero waste to landfill

As a result, they are Net Positive (beyond carbon neutral including the entire supply chain). Every time they produce a piece of print, they take responsibility for more carbon than they are generating – what they call Planet Positive Printing.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue, knowing that it has been produced in line with ethical, sustainable principles.