St Antony’s Green Impact Team has arranged for plant-based milk to be provided alongside dairy milk from now on in college. This is a small step towards making the college an environmentally friendly and healthier place, and it is also hoped that this change will help contribute towards a Silver Award in sustainability.

Oat milk is now provided alongside dairy milk in the Gateway Office, for college meetings, Guest High Table and High Table. The Combined Common Room coffee machine now offers oat milk only and the Senior Common Room offers the option of either dairy or oat milk.

Why are we making this change?

Research by the Wellcome Trust’s Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) programme has shown that livestock production has a negative impact on the environment and while it is easy to see that eating steak, for example, is part of this, people often forget about the potential impact of dairy. Senior Researcher at the Environmental Change Institute, Marco Springmann, has calculated that the average UK citizen would need to reduce the amount of dairy milk they drink by 60% in order to contribute to keeping global warming under a 2C increase. You can read his research in Nature here.

Why oat milk?

The LEAP team suggested oat milk because it is one of the least resource-intensive of plant-based drinks and tends to be most popular for taste.

In addition to day-to-day actions such as this change to non-dairy milk, the College has committed to reducing its carbon footprint and is working with an external consultant to understand where the biggest impacts are and how to tackle these.

Read more about the College’s commitment to a sustainable future:

With the climate crisis becoming ever more urgent, we are working towards our ambition of achieving net-zero emissions as soon as practically possible. Find out how we are getting on - Sustainability at St Antony's

St Antony’s sustainability initiatives were recognised with a Bronze Green Impact prize at the 2022 Vice Chancellor’s Environmental Sustainability Awards.

Dr Tanya Baldwin, Bursar introduces the College’s newly-formed Green Impact Team, November 2021

Follow the student-run Instagram @stantonys_sustainability