Twinings - Ethics

Ethics

The company is a founding member of the Ethical Tea Partnership, a not-for-profit membership organisation of tea-packing companies that works to monitor and improve ethical conditions on tea estates. However, the organisation has been criticised for its "focus on the large-scale producer". Twinings has also an Ethical Code of Conduct and work with all its packaging and raw material suppliers to ensure decent working conditions in the supply chain.

Despite this, Twinings is linked to a number of ethical and environmental issues. The criticism includes the worst ECRA rating for environmental reporting and palm oil use. In the Ethical Consumer magazine on a scale of 0 to 20 where 0–4 is ranked as "very poor", Twinings receives a score of 2 as of 2013.

The company also aim to improve conditions in tea communities, in 2011, Twinings made a three-year financial commitment to support a UNICEF initiative aimed at addressing the inter-generational cycle of under-nutrition among girls and young women of the tea community. The initiative is being implemented in 15 gardens in Dibrugarh, Assam, in partnership with the Assam Branch of the India Tea Association (ABITA). The project aims to significantly reduce the prevalence of anaemia in adolescent girls and women by addressing the underlying causes of their poor nutrition, complemented by improved life skills education. The initiative aims to directly improve the nutrition and life skills of over 8,000 adolescent girls in the region.