Climate Change
Protecting our planet
- Environmental Footprint
- >Climate change
The world is changing…
Our planet is changing fast. Global temperatures are rising and heatwaves, droughts and flash flooding are affecting some of the most vulnerable parts of the world and impacting farmers producing tea and coffee.
We've been planting trees around the world since 1990 and work with our partners and suppliers to help farmers adapt to the impacts of climate change. In 2015 we began our journey to Carbon Neutrality – not just our business operations but our entire supply chain from field to supermarket shelf.
1990
Our first project.
Pledge to plant
We started planting trees around the world as a way to both help the environment and give something back to the communities that grow our tea and coffee. We pledged to plant one million trees. Our first project was in the Shone Valley, 200 miles South of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
2000
1 million trees planted.
Our millionth tree
Working with partners such as the National Trust, Tree Aid and Oxfam we reached our millionth tree in 2000, but we didn’t stop there.
2007
Tree planting with Blue Peter.
3 millionth tree
To celebrate the planting of the 3 millionth tree we invited the original inspiration for our tree planting work, Blue Peter, to lend a helping hand.
2009
Yorkshire Rainforest Project
We launched our Yorkshire Rainforest Project and in all we helped to protect 237,000 hectares of Amazonian Rainforest in Peru (an area the size of the Yorkshire Dales).
2013
Helped farmers boost their yields.
Rainforest Alliance
We collaborated with the Rainforest Alliance to implement a climate smart approach to coffee farming in Uganda. Applying best practices in helping farmers boost their yields and overcome the detrimental effects of climate change on their crops.
2015
World Coffee Research
We began working with World Coffee Research (WCR) – a non-profit with a mission to empower producers and ensure the future of coffee, through collaborative scientific research and development.
2015
Soaking up carbon.
Work towards Carbon Neutrality
We began our work towards Carbon Neutral certification with the launch of a major tree planting project – working in partnership with Natural Capital Partners, TIST (The International Small Group and Tree Planting Programme) and our friends at the Kenya Tea Development Agency, we set about to encourage smallholder tea farmers to plant fruit and nut trees on their farms. These trees help the environment by soaking up carbon, but they also provide valuable secondary income, along with shade and food.
2019
Carbon Neutral Certification
We achieved CarbonNeutral® Certification across our tea and coffee supply chain. We wanted to do it in a way that has real long term benefits to our farmers, their farms and the landscapes they are a part of. Projects in our supplier communities contribute more than two thirds of the emissions reductions and removals that make our products CarbonNeutral and in 2021 we were honoured to win a UN Global Climate Action Award for our work.
2021
UN Climate Action Award
In 2021, we were delighted to be awarded a United Nations Climate Action Now award for our work to become CarbonNeutral® The awards singled out eleven of the world’s most innovative, scalable, and replicable examples of action to tackle climate change and were presented at the COP 26 conference in Glasgow
2022
Moving to a Net Zero Approach
We are really proud of our work to become CarbonNeutral®. Our approach was innovative and made a difference to our suppliers, but we need to do more to address the escalating climate crisis. CarbonNeutral company certification is simply the starting point for our next challenge - Net Zero.
Our Carbon Neutral Journey
The impact of our Carbon Neutral programme
Some of our projects
Trees — they’re proper important
We’ve been planting trees for over 30 years and we’re not going to be stopping anytime soon.
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