In 2020, longtime vegan Joaquin Phoenix’s the Oscars winning actor broke the internet by his soul grabbing speech about sustainability, collective responsibility, poverty, and animal rights.

Actor Joaquin Phoenix condemned the dairy industry in his Best Actor acceptance speech at the 92nd Academy Awards. Phoenix won the Oscar for his performance in “Joker.”

Instead of soaking up accolades, Phoenix gave a beautiful, humble speech about his own flaws and his belief in what he considers “the best of humanity”: our most important trait, compassion for others.

If you haven’t seen it yet or want to feel inspired all over again, watch his speech in its entirety: 

“I think at times we feel or are made to feel that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality,” he said. “I think whether we’re talking about gender inequality, or racism, or queer rights, or indigenous rights, or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, or one species has the right to dominate, control, use, and exploit another with impunity.

“I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world,” he said. “We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and when she gives birth we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. And then we take her milk that’s intended for the calf and we put it in our coffee and cereal. We fear the idea of personal change, because we think we need to sacrifice something; to give something up. But human beings at our best are so creative and inventive, and we can create, develop, and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.”

Phoenix has used this awards season as a platform to discuss animal rights issues and climate change as well as human rights issues and racism. A vegan since age three, Phoenix was instrumental in convincing the Golden Globes to make its menu entirely vegan just days before the ceremony. Other awards ceremonies followed suit: the Critics Choice Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the BAFTAs, all made their menus vegan.

Our Personal Responsibility

We are in this together. "I will never ask anyone to go vegan or change their habits immediately. We don't have to fit in to a cult to make a difference. No I don't believe that. But what I would ask is to have a good look at their lives to see what they can do to help the planet. It could be starting the morning with drinking a GaiaMeal, adding full vegan meal per day, stop drinking milk, getting an electric car, losing weight or improving health so we consume less food and increase our productivity in the same time. 

Either way I can guarantee you that there will be tons of stuff we can do to improve global issues we face today". Says Daminda, Founder of GaiaTribe Co.

The Future With Social Enterprises

Social enterprises are businesses that are changing the world for the better. Like traditional businesses they aim to make a profit but it’s what they do with their profits that sets them apart – reinvesting or donating them to create positive social change.

Over the last 10 years I've witnessed so many new start-ups emerging in this complex, instagram likes driven, busy world as social enterprises. It is such a privilege to see that we all are working together to make this world a better place.

And we're so proud to say that GaiaTribe is one of them. As a company our aim is to encourage people to live sustainably for the protection of our wildlife and the planet. 10% of our profits donated to save wildlife via African Wildlife Foundation, Planting trees via OneTreePlanted and removing plastics from the ocean via The Ocean Clean-Up project.

 And we want to take this opportunity to thank all our customers for helping us to keep improving, keep moving forward and make a difference in the world.