Earth Day 2026 Recap: Why This Year's Conference Was Our Most Hopeful Yet
Posted by Meredith Marin, Co-founder & Executive Director of Vegan Hospitality
This Earth Day, more than 200 hospitality and tourism professionals from over 40 countries spent their day with us. Some of you logged on at 6 a.m. with coffee in hand. Some joined at 10 p.m. after a long day. And some of you stayed for the entire two-and-a-half-hour conference, soaking in every word.
I have to say it: this was our best conference yet.
Now in its fourth year, the Global Vegan Hospitality & Tourism Conference is the only event in the world that brings the hospitality industry and their vegan guests into the same conversation about industry insights. This year's theme, Plant-Forward: Transforming F&B for Sustainable Hospitality, anchored every session and what emerged across the day was a theme of progress and real foundations being built for a more sustainable future.
The transformation we've all been pushing for is happening, but isn’t yet visible in every area because it involves behind the scenes strategizing, training, and planning. Conversations are taking place in hotel procurement offices and chef tastings and brand-standard revisions you can't see from the lobby. Our speakers, five extraordinary voices plus a surprise guest, pulled back the curtain on exactly how these conversations are manifesting in change.
If you missed it live, the full recording is now available, and I want to give you a preview of why you'll want to block off two and a half hours to watch it.
A grounding statistic to pay attention to
We opened with a finding from the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance that I think every hotelier and event professional should sit with: the hospitality food system generates over 185 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, and nearly two-thirds of this is from food sourcing alone. That's more than the entire global data center and AI industry combined.
As a comparison, food waste is 17% of the impact and plastic packaging is just 2%. Food sourcing emissions, driven primarily by beef and dairy, account for 62%.
This means that the single biggest lever any hotel, restaurant, or event can pull is shifting what's actually on the plate.
Gabby Yan: Designing hospitality so the more sustainable choice is the default
Our first speaker was Gabby, founder of TRAppe Travel, a curated discovery travel platform built around the three pillars of sustainability: people, planet, and economy. Joining us live from Indonesia, Gabby made the case that 93% of global travelers say they want to travel more sustainably, but 48% say it's the hardest part of planning a trip.
The gap, she argues, isn't a traveler problem. It's a design problem.
Her session walks through how forward-thinking hospitality businesses are using menu design, honest labeling, local sourcing, and storytelling to make plant-forward the natural choice, without ever needing to shout the word "sustainable." If you've ever wondered why so many "eco-friendly" claims fall flat with Gen Z and millennial travelers, Gabby's answer is worth the watch.
Annie Botch of Tortuga Music Festival: Inside the world's most sustainable large-scale festival
Next, I sat down with Annie, Outreach and Sustainability Coordinator for Rock the Ocean's Tortuga Music Festival, a three-day country music event on Fort Lauderdale Beach that draws over 100,000 fans and tracks more than 300 sustainability initiatives across 20+ festival departments.
Tortuga was the first major music festival to ban plastic water bottle sales (in 2015). They were also one of the first to require all food vendors to offer vegan options as part of their Ocean Friendly Vendor program.
Annie shares what happened when those requirements rolled out (spoiler: 95–100% vendor compliance), why "mushroom tacos" sell more than "vegan tacos," and the surprising finding that seafood sales dropped to nearly zero last year. She also shares her favorite vegan dish from this year's festival, and trust me, you'll want to know which business won "most ocean-friendly food vendor."
This session is essential viewing for anyone working in events, festivals, or large-scale F&B operations.
Tilman Gerald of AHLA: The U.S. hotel industry's behind-the-scenes strategy
Then I had the honor of interviewing Tilman Gerald, Director of Partnerships and Business Development at the American Hotel & Lodging Association, representing 33,000+ properties and over 3 million hotel rooms.
Tilman's interview is a masterclass in where the U.S. hotel industry actually stands on sustainable F&B. He explains why commitments like Accor's 50% plant-based pledge are setting a new baseline rather than a trend, and why the work is happening behind the scenes, out of public view but on a clear runway toward Earth Day 2030.
If you work for a hotel brand, share this segment with your F&B and sustainability leads.
Oana Puiu: How Amsterdam restaurants made plant-forward a city-wide initiative
After Tilman, Hayley interviewed Oana, our newest team member at Vegan Hospitality and the founder of Crave Culture, about Groene Schatten, a publicly funded culinary transition program she co-led with the city of Amsterdam.
Oana walked us through six restaurants, from a French Mediterranean bistro to a 19-year-old Surinamese family restaurant to a residential care facility, and the specific dishes, language tweaks, and small operational shifts that turned each menu more plant-forward without ever asking the chefs to compromise their identity.
You'll hear about a vegan pastrami sandwich that fooled a server from Texas, a mushroom tartare made from shiitake stems that would otherwise be discarded, and one specific Petit Loup dish that saves 4.9 kilograms of carbon per serving, which is the equivalent of 41 kilometers of driving. Per plate.
This session is full of practical, replicable insights for any restaurant or culinary team.
Hayley Cooper: A new course built specifically for travel agents
Hayley then introduced something we're really excited about: Navigating Vegan Client Needs: A Guide for Travel Agents, the world's first online course designed for travel agents, consultants, and DMCs who want to serve vegan clients confidently.
If you're a travel professional (or know one), Hayley's session walks through exactly why vegan travelers are influencing far more bookings than the industry realizes, how the "veto vote" works in group travel, and what it takes to design a truly vegan-friendly trip beyond the food. Waitlist members get 20% off when the course launches.
And our surprise guest…
We closed the conference with a surprise guest speaker: Miyoko Schinner, award-winning chef, author, entrepreneur, food systems activist, and farmed animal sanctuary founder.
Miyoko joined us to share what she's learning as she leads vegan culinary tours across Japan, Tanzania, and India this year. Her conversation ranges from the 1,200-year history of shojin ryori (Buddhist vegan cuisine) in Japan, to her pet peeves about American food colonization abroad, to her single most powerful piece of advice for anyone who wants to change how the world eats.
I won't spoil it, but it involves your kitchen, your neighbors, and a dinner table.
Watch the full recording
If any of this resonates with you, whether you work in hotels, restaurants, events, travel, food systems, or you simply care about the future of how we eat when we travel, the recording is the best two and a half hours you'll spend this week.
Watch the full conference recording here
Feel free to share it with friends, family, and industry colleagues who would have wanted to be in the room. And if your organization is ready to take a real step toward plant-forward, whether that's the free Hotel Self-Assessment Scorecard, our hotel certification program, or working directly with our consulting team, we're here for it.
Thank you to every speaker, every attendee, and every person who has championed this conversation over the years. The future of food in hospitality is being written right now, and it's looking brighter than ever.
Happy Earth Day, friends!