Saving the planet, one label at a time  

We've had a series of earnest discussions and proposals, including within the European Parliament, about whether plant-based foods should be allowed to use words like 'burger' or 'sausage'

Michelle McKeown: "Call it a plant-based patty, or a meatless burger or a veggie burger. Environmental systems are unimpressed by symbolism. Rivers do not care what products are called. Ecosystems recover only when pressures are actually reduced. The climate does not read packaging."

Environmental policy has reached an odd moment in its life cycle. The problems it is meant to address such as climate change, biodiversity loss, polluted waters, have never been clearer, more urgent or better evidenced.

And yet, some of the debates taking place under the banner of environmental action feel strangely… small. Not wrong, exactly. Just small.