Earlier on in the year, we wrote about the environmental and nutritional benefits that going vegan can bring about. This January, it is estimated that around 150,000 people globally went vegan this month, a record breaking statistic.

There were a number of factors that encouraged this revolution, the most prominent being recognition that we urgently need to take actions to help the environment, as well as people being increasingly aware of the health benefits that a vegan diet can bring and the desire to care for animals. These three reasons are the basis of an international advertising campaign that is currently running on the transport networks in London, Manchester, Sydney and Boston.

It appears that the majority of the people taking part in veganuary are aged somewhere between 18-44, possibly demonstrating a correlation between those who spend most time on social media and are exposed to vegan publicising. Google trends show the search term for the word “vegan” is at an all-time high in the UK, and many celebrities have also taken part in the trend, such as Beyonce.

It appears that veganism is becoming something more of a social justice movement rather than simply a ‘fad diet’, as it has been labelled by sceptics. Whilst thousands of people have joined in with this plant-based lifestyle, there remain those who question its ability to positively affect the environment in any way. However, veganism is more than just a trend – there are hard facts to prove its beneficial impact, and even going vegan for a month can bring about massive changes.

In a lifetime, each of us will eat more than 7,000 animals so by choosing to stop today, a lot of lives are spared. It won’t save the animals who are in farms and slaughterhouses today, of course, but it is a simple rule of economics that when demand decreases so does supply. Quite simply, as people buy fewer animal products, supermarkets and butchers will reduce their orders, and so fewer animals will be bred and killed.

This means that even one month of vegan eating can make a difference. While sparing the lives of thousands of animals is no small thing, our impact is magnified further because we are not going vegan all by ourselves. There are millions of us choosing to eat only animal-free foods and each of us influences others to enjoy meat-free meals, too.

Alone, we spare the miserable suffering of thousands of animals, which is something extraordinary to be proud of, but together we are saving billions of animals, and every person’s contribution counts.