News
Climate Change
We believe our drinks can be a force for positive change around the world - from the communities we source our ingredients, to the homes where our drinks are enjoyed. We are working to improve the wellbeing and livelihoods of our farmers and sourcing communities, while protecting the planet we rely on by sourcing quality ingredients to the highest ethical and sustainable standards, and improving our environmental impact.
We are aware that climate change is accelerating fast and poses a risk to smallholder tea farmers. As extreme weather and natural disasters continue to affect the sowing and growing of healthy crops, the people who supply the ingredients for our products will become ever more vulnerable. We’re committed to helping to preserve their quality of life and ensure they can rely on agriculture to support their families, through our Sourced with Care programme.
To combat the potentially devastating impacts of climate change on communities in our supply chain, we’re working to become carbon neutral for our entire supply chain and operations, from tea bushes and peppermint fields to supermarket shelves.
To achieve this, we’ll use a combination of reducing our energy use and opting for renewable options, for our own operations and supporting producers in our supply chain. Our UK operations are already carbon neutral - including at our head office and UK factory.
Alongside our carbon reduction efforts, we balance any unavoidable carbon emissions with initiatives in our supply chain to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
We are tackling climate change and preserving trees while improving life in our supply chain
We are supporting the provision of clean cook stoves in tea communities in Kenya, who traditionally use smoky open fires and inefficient cookstoves, leading to indoor air pollution, causing respiratory disease and contributing to global climate change.
We are working with ClimateCare to distribute the Burn Jikokoa, a clean-burning, efficient cookstove, which reduces toxic smoke exposure in the home, cuts carbon emissions, and reduces household expenses in our sourcing regions in Kenya.
We are also working on a water filtration programme to provide safe drinking water for our tea communities, helping to reduce incidences of waterborne diseases. These water filters also eliminate the need to burn wood or charcoal to boil water for purification, helping to improve the health of people in our sourcing communities, while also cutting carbon emissions and protecting local forests.
Both projects help to reduce deforestation and carbon emissions in tea communities and contribute to offset any residual emissions from our UK operations, so we are not putting in to the atmosphere more carbon than we take out.
We are helping farmers adapt to climate change and improving their livelihoods
Farming communities are increasingly on the frontline of climate change and related environmental challenges, like water scarcity and poor soil health, so we’re helping them to learn improved farming practices, so they’re better equipped to combat the effects of climate change and protect their livelihoods. To achieve this, we’ve engaged with farming communities, using our Twinings Community Needs Assessment to understand how we can best help farmers to gain the knowledge, tools and skills they need to make these changes.
We aim to reach 25,000 farming families with training on sustainable practices and income diversification by 2025. This will cover things like planting shade trees and diversifying varieties with drought and frost resistant crops; increasing the organic material and nutrient content of soil with compost, manure and fertiliser; efficient management of water storage and harvesting, including rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation; and the introduction of agroforestry crops to diversify incomes.
In Guatemala, we are working with cardamom farmers to improve their livelihoods.
Introducing agroforestry crops such as cinnamon, cloves and black pepper, help communities adapt to climate change, by aiming for a more ecologically diverse output from the land, as well as boosting income through diversification.
So far, 500 cardamom producing families have increased their income by 15% by diversifying cardamom agroforestry systems and improving productivity and market access.
"The intrinsic link between farming communities and the land they work on, means it is imperative to support environmentally friendly agricultural resilience to ensure social sustainability. We want our supply chain to be working in harmony with nature and act as a force for good for both people and planet"
Celine Gilart, Head of Social Impact