Thursday, May 7, 2009

Lipton Tea Now Rainforest Friendly

Lipton, a brand owned by Unilever is in the process of having all of it's tea certified rainforest friendly. This doesn't mean much to me personally, but some of the figures quoted by the article in The Guardian were pretty amazing.

"Unilever, a European based Anglo-Dutch food and household products maker ... accounts for about 12 percent of the world's tea..."

Read the rest of the article here.

3 comments:

Bret said...

Nothing wrong with being "Rain Forest Friendly" whatever that actually means but it seems to be a current trend that major corporations are all jumping on the bandwagon of trying to "out green" each other. It would be interesting to know if there is a demonstrable difference in the way they operate or if this is nothing more than a new logo for the product.

Michiel said...

Hi, I actually work for Lipton on the Rainforest Alliance partnership. I would like to take the opportunity to explain a little more.

Lipton is in the process of ensuring all the tea used in its tea bags globally comes from farms that are Rainforest Alliance certified.

The Rainforest Alliance is an independent organization, an NGO that works towards sustainability. In order for a farm to become Rainforest Alliance certified, they need to pass a stringent audit, where they are checked against almost 200 criteria. These criteria include environmental, social, and business practices.

Rainforest Alliance certification therefore provides an independent guarantee to consumers that a product was grown in a responsible way, with respect for the environment and the workers.

for more information check http://www.rainforest-alliance.org and http://www.nationalgeographic.com/liptonsustainabilitea/

thank you!

Michiel said...

sorry, the last link didn't copy correctly, it is

www.nationalgeographic.com/liptonsustainabilitea/