The Ethical Tea Partnership evolves to maximise its impact on the global tea sector - 04|08|2009

The Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) is pleased to announce it is evolving to maximise its effectiveness in improving the lives of tea workers and assuring its members’ supply chains.

The ETP is an international non-competitive alliance of 20 tea packers who share a vision of a thriving industry that is socially just and environmentally sustainable. The new approach will see the ETP build on its long-standing estate monitoring work by establishing new relationships with certification programmes, governments, NGOs, and other specialists to deliver increased social and environmental improvements. 

One significant driver of this increased effectiveness is that the ETP will no longer monitor any tea estate which has achieved certification status from Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade or UTZ CERTIFIED. Avoiding duplication in this way will reduce the audit burden on tea producers and enable the ETP to concentrate its resources on producers that are not currently being monitored by certification programmes.

ETP’s co-operation with certification programmes will help streamline the certification process for tea estates and increase the speed at which tea from certified producers enters the market. If an ETP member is interested in part of their supply chain becoming certified and the tea estate is interested in certification, the ETP will now work with the producer and certification programme in question to achieve this as efficiently as possible.

“Co-operation amongst environmental and social standards systems is essential if they are to fulfil their potential in scaling up critical environmental and social impacts. ETP’s collaboration with independent third-party certification systems and the fact that it brings together such a large proportion of the tea industry gives it the potential to enable significant change in the tea sector”. Sasha Courville, Executive Director, ISEAL Alliance

ETP’s social and environmental improvement work will be underpinned by its new global monitoring standard. This is being rolled out across estates that supply ETP members and are not involved in any certification programmes. It covers key elements of all the relevant certification programmes, which will help ease the transition for any producers who become interested in certification at a later date. ETP’s monitoring remains free to producers.

The ETP plans to increase its work on the ground with government departments, NGOs, UN bodies, and technical specialists, on projects designed to help producers make practical and sustainable improvements, in particular to the lives of their workers. New capacity building partnerships will continue the ETP’s track record of bringing about improvements in a wide range of areas, including market access, living and working conditions and health and safety.

Leading the ETP into the next exciting stage of its development is new Executive Director Sarah Roberts who has a background in development work and multi-stakeholder partnerships. Sarah is supported by a team in the UK and a network of Regional Managers based in India, China, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Indonesia. These are local people with wide ranging experience of the tea sector, development skills and enabling sustainable change.

“The ETP has the potential to make a difference at scale, rather than just on the margins. With its 12 years of experience, detailed first-hand knowledge of the tea sector and continual engagement with producers, the ETP is uniquely placed to drive sustained change within the tea sector.

I am looking forward to building on the many practical improvements that the ETP has already brought about, from resolving tricky labour issues in East Africa and Sri Lanka to health and safety improvements in Indonesia and China”. SARAH ROBERTS, Executive Director, ETP

Today’s news builds on 12 great years of work by the ETP. It reflects a significant step forward and extends the relevance of the ETP’s work in line with the changing demands of its many and varied stakeholders.

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For more information contact:
Sarah Roberts, ETP Executive Director

Ethical Tea Partnership
The Chandlery
50 Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7QY
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7953 7604
Fax: +44 (0)20 7953 7670
email: info@ethicalteapartnership.org
www: ethicalteapartnership.org
Tel: +44 (0)20 7953 7665
Mob: +44 (0) 7824 622384
Dr. Norman Kelly, ETP Chairman,
Tel: +44 (0)7817 242294 

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