London, Los Angeles, Barcelona Top List of World’s Most Vegan-Friendly Cities

London, Los Angeles, and Barcelona have been named the top most vegan-friendly cities in the world in a new report. 

Releasing its report on the world’s most plant-forward and sustainable cities, abillion has revealed London, Los Angeles and Barcelona as the top choices for conscious citizens. The Singapore-headquartered vegan review platform analysed cities based on how friendly they are to plant-based lifestyles, as well as cities’ commitment to green policies and sustainability achievements. 

Cities of the Future

The list, published in abillion’s the “Cities of the Future” report, recognised 10 vegan-friendly cities globally. Other cities that made it to the list include Melbourne, Singapore, Johannesburg, Toronto, New York City, Berlin and Cape Town. 

Abillion compiled the ranking based on more than 850,000 user reviews on its platform, across over 150 countries and 6,000 cities. It also included data from external sources, inputting all the information into a computational model that determined the final score. Cities were given scores on four categories, including plant-based lifestyles, green policy commitments, GHG emissions reduction, and waste reduction. 

Vikas Garg, founder and CEO of the platform, shared that the report aims to highlight the cities that are leading by example. “In light of the COP26 climate summit where nature took center stage, our report highlights how leading cities around the world have been making strides to being kinder on the planet and its residents—human and animal alike.”

“There’s certainly more work that needs to be done in becoming a sustainable world, and we’re here to help,” Garg continued. “We hope that our insights and findings help guide others to contribute to driving positive change.”

London: the world’s most ‘future-ready’

Top of the ranking was London, which managed to perform the best on two of the four criteria that abillion’s scoring was based upon. Specifically, London was recognised for its “embrace of a plant-based lifestyle and having strong political commitments to green policies which are implemented and recorded with transparency.”

There are more than 900 restaurants with vegan options in the city, and the capital has pledged to reach net-zero by 2030. 

But the plant-based shift is happening across the UK, which is now one of the fastest-growing markets for the vegan food industry across Europe. One poll from The Vegan Society found around a quarter of the population had cut back on animal-based foods since Covid-19, and another from Deliveroo suggests that around 20% of Brits will be eating a vegan or vegetarian Christmas meal this holiday season.

Data from Deliveroo also showed a huge uptick in the number of vegan-friendly restaurants across the country, with more than 14,000 plant-forward partners now listed on the UK platform alone. By region, the food delivery giant shared that the cities in the UK that are ordering the most vegan food are Brighton, Bristol and Leeds. 

All images courtesy of abillion.