OUR APPROACH

The standards we expect our suppliers to meet are laid out in our Code of Conduct and complemented by our Human Rights Policy, as specified in our overarching Responsible Sourcing Policies for tea, herbs and spices. It details our commitment to conduct our business with integrity, to respect human rights and to uphold core labour principles. We have a layered approach to monitoring that these standards are being adhered to. Our tier one sites are monitored for compliance against our Code on a risk-based approach.  Tier one sites include co-manufacturers, co-packers, licensing partners, packing houses, packaging suppliers, as well as site service providers, warehousing and own production sites.

We don’t own any tea or herb estates, farms or gardens but are selective about who we source from, only purchasing tea from Rainforest Alliance certified gardens. We also go beyond solely relying on third-party certification and since 2016 our Social Impact and Sustainability team has been carrying out Twinings Community Needs Assessment (TCNA) periodically on every tea garden and farm we source from, as well as our key herb suppliers. This framework takes a holistic approach to assessing human rights risks and community needs in our supply chain, it is tailored around hearing from the workers, farmers and community members themselves, through focus group discussions and individual interviews. 

A TCNA covers ten areas related to human rights and the welfare of workers in our supply chain: gender, health and nutrition, children’s rights, lands rights, livelihoods, water and sanitation, natural resources, farming practices, housing, and working conditions.

It helps give us a firsthand understanding of the conditions on the ground in our tea and herb suppliers and helps us to identify any areas for improvement. 

We are also determined to play a leading role in developing a progressive tea sector working in close collaboration with others, including the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) and its members, to help bring about industry-wide change. To achieve our ambitions, we work with partners on the ground in our key sourcing regions to help address societal and environmental industry-wide issues. Our partners include producers, NGOs, government agencies, industry platforms, as well as the tea and herb growing communities we source from.

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In our supply chain, where the vast majority of our emissions are, we are collaborating with our suppliers to reduce our Scope 3 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 Scope 3 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.

In 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.