I don't think this is true, especially for company parties. I have also heard of people in other industries drinking in the office, usually these were smaller companies, or the people doing the drinking were upper management.
When I was at OpenDNS, @davidu used to say something along the lines of, "When you try to host a big company party with over 100 people, you expect to have to fire somebody for their behavior there. Don't be that person." Maybe the costs don't outweigh the benefits of work parties.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/wework-m...
What's even more ridiculous is that beef is the costly meat from an environmental perspective, but they've also banned poultry and all other types of meat. I can understand not serving meat, but not allowing employees to expense meals involving meat would make me reconsider working there - especially because of the heavy handed way they did it.
I'm not aware of this, and would be interested in knowing more; as I understand currently, that flow really does apply.
Maybe some companies out there also banned slave ownership across the board. Probably seemed unfair, too. Did they not realize how useful slaves are?
Now, this seems like a silly comparison because we're all so used to eating meat for every meal, but does familiarity trump ethical concerns?
I think you may be overestimating the volume of job applicants that pay attention to such policies, and/or their qualifications.
I am referring only to the prohibition on expensing certain types of meals, not non-meat food/environments in general.
Not extreme at all. Except for salespeople having business lunches, in the United States, drinking on company time is pretty much verboten outside of the tech bubble.