Building a movement: the Compassionate Choices Network

For 20 years, ACTAsia has worked to change how people in Asia think about animals, each other, and the environment. Win #18 in our “20 Years, 20 Wins” series is the Compassionate Choices Network, a group of Asian organisations that ACTAsia brought together for mutual empowerment and transformation.

The work of changing people’s perceptions and values can be incredibly isolating and onerous. ACTAsia founder and CEO Pei Su says it only gets bigger through a collective voice. That was the impetus behind the Compassionate Choices Network (CCN), which ACTAsia launched in 2021. #18 of 20

Why Asia needed its own network

Asia’s meat production has grown 15 times since 1961, and the region now produces more meat than anywhere else. Yet humane education is rarely taught in schools, and many non-profits work with little funding and under political restrictions. The CCN was built on the belief that solutions must come from within Asia. Western advocacy models rarely fit the region’s cultures and contexts. The CCN impact report describes it as the only network dedicated exclusively to Asia.

Pei Su sees the network as an alliance, much like the European Union or the G7, where countries that share goals gain strength by acting together. The CCN applies the same thinking to organisations. Its members work together on a shared mission to protect animals, people and the environment by promoting compassionate consumption and sustainable plant-based lifestyles in Asia. 

From six founders to eleven members

The CCN began in 2021 with six founding organisations from China, India, Japan and Vietnam. It now has 11 members across Asia. This growth is significant in a region where building trust normally takes decades.

The members learn by doing. In 2022, ACTAsia launched Plant Forward, the CCN’s flagship initiative and the first region-wide campaign designed and led by Asian organisations. By 2025 it had 109 partners across six countries, including 83 businesses, and 158.4 million social media impressions (this is Win #17). In 2023 the UN SDG Action Campaign gave the network a spotlight, which strengthened its credibility with governments and partners.

What matters most is what happens inside member organisations. Greeneration Foundation in Indonesia worked on river waste, food waste and sustainable tourism, and had done little on plant-based diets before it joined the CCN in 2023. Plant Forward is now an annual event for the foundation and part of its future strategy. PAWS in the Philippines used it to bring farm animal welfare and compassionate consumption to students who first came for dogs and cats.

What members say

In a 2026 survey, 10 of the CCN’s 11 members said the network had strengthened their organisation, and four said it had done so to a great extent. The comments describe the value in plain terms. ACRES in Singapore said the CCN collaboration “help us maintain relationships and project a consolidated voice to speak up for the voiceless.”

The highest-rated activity was the 2025 Leadership Summit in New Delhi, the network’s first in-person conference. Members said it showed them “how much we needed to be in the same room with other leaders doing the same work, pushing through the same challenges and still showing up.”

What comes next

The CCN’s members are still mostly small and underfunded, and every country has its own language, culture and stage of development. The network is planning for that. It wants more peer learning between members and more joint projects beyond Plant Forward. It aims to reach 15 members in 12 countries by 2029, with new members in Thailand and Malaysia.

For ACTAsia, this is what 20 years of work looks like when it goes beyond one organisation: local groups leading change in their own communities, with each other’s support. To see what CCN members have achieved together, you can read the CCN and Plant Forward impact report 2021–2025.

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