OUR APPROACH
We are committed to respecting internationally recognised human rights in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, both in our own operations and in our Find out more on the work we are doing here.
People are at the heart of Sourced with Care. Every day in gardens and farms around the world, hundreds of thousands of people are growing, tending and harvesting the finest ingredients. Without these people, their skills and the environment where our ingredients grow, a cup of Twinings tea would not be possible. Sourced With Care is our way of recognising the vital role that these people and their communities play through programmes that aim to drive positive change through empowering women, and improving living standards. These are some of our programmes:
Most tea estates are usually in quite rural areas, where access to safe and dignified sanitation is often an issue. To help address this we work with our suppliers to accelerate the building of sanitation facilities and awareness on hand washing and good hygiene practices. Since 2010 we have built over 3,000 toilets, providing safe, long-lasting and dignified sanitation to over 18,000 people in India and Sri Lanka
Rooibos, a key herb for Twinings, is grown primarily in Cederberg, South Africa, in remote communities that tend to be far from any medical facilities, including hospitals. To help address this, Twinings partnered with The Pebbles Project to provide access to medical care, funding a Mobile Health Clinic which now visits the Roobios farms, which means that these workers and their families, who live on the farms, do not need to travel to more populated areas to access basic services. The Clinic provides workers, which are predominantly female, and their families, with wellness screenings, routine health check-ups, primary healthcare support, health and wellness workshops and over-the-counter health products. As well as providing better access to health care facilities, The Pebbles Project also aims to provide farm workers and their communities with information on topics such as sexual health, dental care and maternal health, increasing awareness and empowering individuals to take control of their and their family’s health.
As the majority of those working in the tea estates are women, we have a number of programmes focusing on empowering women and as part of that, making sure they are aware of their rights as workers. For example, we have recently extended our Community Development Forums (CDFs) model to Indonesia where we are working with the Ethical Tea Parnership, Care International and other likeminded brands to support the implementation of CDFs on three tea estates that we source from. The CDF helps to address these issues by training female tea pluckers in leadership skills and women’s safety and through open dialogue with management gives them a platform to be heard. The programme also focuses on human rights and promotes the representation of women in workers’ unions and leadership committees in the workplace. The success of the CDF model relies heavily on direct community participation and aims to embed the CDF open dialogue structure in the estates, so that it out-lives the length of project.
In India, we are members of the Women Safety Accelerator Fund (WSAF), a collaboration led by IDH – the Sustainable Trade Initiative, and funded by the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) and a number of other brands and retails. The WSAF is designed address women’s safety and gender-based violence in the Indian tea sector, and aims to support women in becoming socially, economically and politically empowered in rural spaces, that are free from sexual harassment and other forms of violence. WSAF does this through a series of awareness and training sessions, while also providing support to women who have experienced issues.
We have also developed a specific Gender-Based Violence and Harassment (GBVH) policy and implementation toolkit for suppliers. This policy, which we are rolling out to our suppliers, starting in Kenya initially, sets out the standards which we expect them to comply with, including requirements to introduce GBV preventative measures, carry out training, and operate effective grievance mechanisms.
Find out more on the work we are doing on Improving Lives here.
We recognise the risk climate change poses to our business and our supply chains and to reduce our emissions we have set 2030 near- and long-term science-based emissions targets, and committed to achieving net-zero by 2050. Our targets and commitment are in line with limiting global warming to within 1.5°C, which has been independently validated and approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
Addressing climate change is particularly important for the gardens, farms and people that grow our tea and herbs in our supply chains, as extreme weather and natural disasters, like heat waves, irregular rainfall, flooding and drought, continue to affect the sowing and growing of healthy crops and the livelihoods of communities who rely on them.
In our own operations, including factories and offices, we generate approximately 2% of our business’ total carbon emissions. This is mostly from natural gas and indirect emissions associated with the purchased electricity. To reduce our emissions we’re focused on identifying and implementing energy savings and manufacturing efficiencies, as well as switching to renewable energy.
In our supply chain, where the vast majority of our emissions are, we are collaborating with our suppliers to reduce our supply chain emissions. We are engaging with key suppliers to support their efforts in reducing carbon emissions and are planning to conduct bespoke Life Cycle Assessments, starting with our largest tea suppliers. These assessments will focus on site-level factors such as: existing reduction plans, renewable energy usage, farm inputs, regenerative farming practices, and soil management. By understanding suppliers' carbon footprints, we aim to provide targeted support and drive emissions reductions across the supply chain.
We’re also working hard to minimise our packaging materials, using less and where possible using more sustainable alternatives, increasing the recycled content and removing single-use plastic, and in doing so also making sure more of our packaging is recyclable, reuseable and our teabags compostable. We have already made progress but recognise that there is always more work to be done.
Logistics account for a minimal portion of our supply chain emissions, as raw ingredients are shipped from sourcing countries to production sites rather than being air-freighted. However, we are working on optimising product transportation to customers by minimising the use of empty trucks, using jumbo trailers to reduce the number of journeys, shifting from road freight to rail freight, and exploring alternative fuels.
IIn addition to all the work we are doing to address our environmental impacts, we also have a number of programmes designed to train farmers in more sustainable farming techniques. For example, in Guatemala we are working with Mercy Corps and cardamom farmers to help reduce deforestation, introducing crop diversification, improved pest management, to help improve biodiversity. Cardamom requires shade to grow, so in combining these plants with other, more commercial trees, such as the native Madrecacao, which is fast growing, as well as Cedar and Mahogany, these provide the much-needed shade for the plants, while also providing another source of income over time. Farmers are also combining their crops with cinnamon, cloves and black pepper, helping them to diversify their outputs and improve their income.
Once harvested cardamom needs to be dried and this programme has helped the famers switch from wood-based fires to propane gas driers. This significantly reduces the need for wood to be used as fuel, helping to reduce deforestation, but also improves the quality of the cardamom, as the propane fires provide a much more consistent temperature in which to dry the pods.
In Kenya we have partnered with the Farmer Voice Radio NGO, to provide training to Kenyan smallholder tea farmers, funded by the UK FCDO’s WOW (Work and Opportunity for Women) programme. These smallholder farmers, particularly female farmers, often have little to no access to training given work and family time pressures. This innovative programme funds the development of a series of training programmes designed by and for women, which are broadcast, in local dialects, over the radio twice a week and then uploaded to YouTube, which means farmers can listen at a time that suits them and their schedule. The series focuses on training farmers on more environmentally friendly farming techniques including land management techniques, such as reducing the amount of tillage, appropriate use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers and switching to organic where possible, water harvesting and pest management.
Find out more on the work we’re doing on climate and nature here.
