It is hard to overstate how popular tea is: in the UK alone, more than 100 million cups of tea are consumed every day. It’s also an incredibly globalised industry that is spread across the world: tea grown everywhere from Kenya to Colombia to Sri Lanka is consumed everywhere from London to Tokyo to Toronto. It also incredibly lucrative industry, worth some $50 billion a year.
The tea industry contributes to climate change and is a victim of it: farmers are dependent on healthy land; droughts and pollution destroys tea crops and ruins livelihoods, which is why it is so important that tea companies across the supply chain embrace a new, sustainable future.
One company that has done this is Taylors of Harrogate, an independent family tea and coffee business, founded in 1886 in Yorkshire by Charles Taylor and his two sons.
It won a UN Global Climate Action Award at COP26, thanks to its achievement in becoming carbon neutral in 2020 and its work in reducing emissions across its entire supply chain.
Net zero journey
Taylor’s of Harrogate’s Head of Sustainable Development, Simon Hotchkin points out it makes sense for the company to embrace a Net Zero journey, given how dependent the company is on healthy land. “When we began working towards Carbon Neutrality in 2015, it made sense for us based on its interdependency with ensuring a secure supply of quality tea and coffee into the future and helping to protect farmer livelihoods,” he says.
The company has also installed solar panels on its tea and coffee factory, generating almost 200,000 kwh of electricity a year; has sent zero waste to landfill since 2017; increased the efficiency of its trucks; and imported all its tea and coffee through the north East Coast of England instead of the South Coast, saving 136,000 road miles and 205.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2018 alone. It also uses an electric van for local internal deliveries, has a staff lift sharing scheme in place, and electric car charging points for staff and visitors in our car park.
To offset the emissions the company can’t avoid, it has also launched a tree planting project with smallholder tea farmers in Kenya – where they source some of their tea from –and set up two healthy cookstoves projects in Uganda and Malawi. The cookstoves projects produce carbon credits by reducing emissions (as they use biomass, not charcoal), while protecting forests and supporting families’ health and wellbeing.
“We buy much of our tea from producers in Eastern Kenya as this is where we can find the best quality leaves,” Hotchkin says. “But unexpected weather events have more and more of an impact on tea harvests and production and in the last year our suppliers have had to cope with the consequences of lower than average rains and colder temperatures.”
Indeed, Kenya is suffering its worst drought in decades, with water sources drying up, livestock and wildlife dying (at least 100 giraffes have died in Kenya's northeastern Wajir province). This had a huge impact of crop production, including tea.
“Tea is hugely important to the Kenyan economy and to people’s livelihoods, but the country is highly vulnerable to climate change, and as rainfall becomes less predictable whole communities are suffering,” Hotchkin says. “When we started working with TIST (The International Small Group Tree Planting Programme), we really wanted to make sure the work had an immediate positive impact on the farmers and communities we buy from, as well as helping to address the bigger picture of climate change.”
Aligning with 1.5 degrees
Hotchkin's advice for other companies looking to reduce their emissions is clear: “Do it as part of a broader climate strategy, align with the science (the 1.5 degree trajectory) and focus on addressing what is most material to your business,” he says. “If you take the time to collaborate across your supply chain, you can deliver meaningful scope 3 reductions.”
Collaboration is also key. “Implementing a project in Kenya from a desk in the north of England presents a whole range of challenges. TIST, who we worked with in Kenya, have been an incredible partner, and have delivered with exemplary levels of expertise and integrity. They have worked collaboratively with both us and our tea farmers to address challenges as they’ve arisen – a true partnership.”
To date, almost three million trees have been planted and more than 45,000 farmers have signed up. In 2021, TIST became the first Climate, Community, & Biodiversity (CCB) Standard Triple Gold Afforestation/Reforestation project in the world.
Climate action
Of course, as the recent IPCC report made clear, it is important that climate action comes from consumers as well. And Hotchkin has noticed more awareness of climate-friendly choices among its customers. “This is something that has grown even more since the pandemic,” he says. “Not only are our consumers keen that the businesses they buy from behave sustainably, but they’re also looking for more ways to make a difference at home – whether that be through recycling more, reducing food waste or using less energy.”
“This is important to us as, while our Carbon Neutral product certification is from ‘field to supermarket shelf’, it doesn’t include what happens once our tea and coffee drinkers get their products home and make a brew,” Hotchkin says. “We know that boiling a kettle is responsible for around a third of the emissions of making a cup of tea so making sure we boil the right amount of water can make a big difference.”
The next challenge for the company is to keep reducing the amount of carbon the company is responsible for emitting. “The right thing to do is to ensure our investments are delivering carbon reduction, not just carbon offsetting,” Hotchkin says. “We will be establishing a long term strategy and target for emissions reduction across our whole value chain, to ensure we play our part in limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees.”