We’ve gone carbon neutral

Our planet is changing fast. Carbon dioxide that’s released from factories, farms and power plants is causing global temperatures to rise which means heatwaves, droughts and flash flooding in some of the most vulnerable parts of the world. It also means that it’ll be significantly harder to farm certain crops, and that means a lot of people will struggle to make a decent living. 

Rising global temperatures threaten communities all over the globe — including the smallholders that grow our tea and coffee.

Reducing our footprint

Making tea and coffee clearly has a carbon footprint. It’s shipped around the world, it contributes to agricultural activities that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and it’s packaged in materials derived from industrial processes. All of which means that we are contributing to climate change. 

To combat this, in 2015 we set about becoming carbon neutral. We gained product certification for our tea and coffee in 2019 and company certification in 2020. While our company certification continues we are now moving into our next challenge — building the path to Net Zero.

 

Reducing our footprint

The most important thing we can do is find ways to reduce our own impact and help our suppliers to do the same. For example, we’ve worked with the Kenyan Tea Development Agency to assess the energy efficiency of their factories and find ways to make savings. And we’re constantly looking for new ways to cut down our carbon at our Harrogate HQ — from using renewable energy to managing our buildings efficiently. 

 

Going carbon neutral also meant finding decent ways to balance our carbon footprint. 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. In 2021 we were honoured to win a UN Global Climate Action Award for our work.

Just keep planting

Working in partnership with Natural Capital Partners, TIST (The International Small Group Tree Planting Programme) and our friends at the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), we set about to encourage farmers to plant fruit and nut trees on their tea farms. These trees help the environment by soaking up carbon, but they also provide valuable secondary income, along with shade and food. Our programme has led to the planting of over three million trees on and around Mt. Kenya. 

 

Multi-purpose stoves

It’s not just about planting trees though. We also supported a project that provides fuel efficient cookstoves to smallholders in Malawi. These cookstoves can be used to heat water or cook food. They’re considerably more efficient than traditional alternatives, which means that our smallholders are saving time and money in the long run.

Our cookstove project contributed to negating our carbon footprint by ensuring trees are preserved – avoiding deforestation is as important as planting new trees.