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Our Approach


Our approach to sustainability is guided by our understanding of the issues facing the tea and herb industry.

To identify these issues, we talk to a wide range of stakeholders inside and outside Twinings and consider things like industry trends and upcoming legislation.

Like many agricultural areas across the world, many of the communities in our supply chain face social and environmental challenges. We’re putting our sustainability efforts into where we believe we can make the biggest difference. We have two priority areas for action and investment and look at sustainability through two lenses – the environmental and social impact we have on the world, and the environmental and social issues that could affect our business in the long term.

We believe our Sourced with Care programme is necessary not only for the resilience of our business but the health of our planet, the needs of our consumers and the wellbeing of the people who make every drink possible.

A blueprint for a thriving tea industry

We launched our Sourced with Care programme in 2016 to help support the people who grow our ingredients and their communities.

Since then, we have evolved our strategy to help address environmental issues and reinforce our efforts to be a good employer and responsible business.

Our approach to understanding community needs

Our Twinings Community Needs Assessment (TCNA) framework helps us understand the needs of communities in our supply chains. Designed to be participative, it focuses on listening directly to workers, farmers and their communities about the challenges they face. This is a critical part of our human rights monitoring and informs the work we do which aims to help improve people’s working conditions and quality of life in our supplier communities.

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Working in partnership

We know that to create industry-wide change, we can’t act alone. As a founding member of the ETP (Ethical Tea Partnership), we collaborate closely with others to help tackle complex sector-wide challenges. These include our trusted partners on the ground delivering programmes that make such a difference to people’s lives. We also rely on expert guidance from specialists across many topics, from human rights to women’s safety, from sanitation to environmental sustainability.

  • People in our communities

    Every day, thousands of people in our supply chains are growing, tending and harvesting quality ingredients. Helping to make sure they are supported, respected and empowered is at the heart of what we do.

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  • Environmental impacts

    We’ve always taken care to craft quality teas and infusions from ingredients sourced from around the world. But we believe that quality should not come at the expense of the planet. That’s why we’re continually working to better understand and reduce our environmental impact.

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