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You know ethical consumerism has properly moved into the mainstream when one of the nation's favourite cuppas, PG Tips, decides to use Rainforest Alliance-certified tea.
Down our local shop yesterday, we were excited to see the small square PG Tips packets sporting the Rainforest Alliance frog label with accompanying text that told us that now 50 per cent of PG Tips tea comes from Rainforest Alliance-certified farms, and that the tea company aims to make that 100 per cent by 2010.
So what does this mean? We spoke to Anita Neville from the Rainforest Alliance, who told us the organisation works to ensure farmers learn to farm sustainably, which has proved to have positive social and economic knock-on effects. In other words, the Rainforest Alliance does not guarantee the farmers get a certain price for a commodity, such as tea, but it does work directly with farmers to help them achieve "sustainable farm management" -- in both the environmental and social sense.
Rainforest Alliance-certified farms must comply with standards covering areas including the right to organise, the right to a safe and clean working environment, the right to be paid at least the national minimum wage, dignified housing and medical care for workers and their families and free education for children.
But why Rainforest Alliance? Trevor Gorin, from Unilever -- which owns PG Tips -- told SmartPlanet that the decision to use Rainforest Alliance tea was part of the PG Tips brand development. He explained to us: "We looked at what other factors consumers could see this brand with -- they don't just drink it, they also see it as a 'citizen', as in 'is it good for the planet' or 'is it bad for the planet'? And we decided to go with Rainforest Alliance because it's one of the few certification systems that works with both big and small farmers.
"The other element is that the Rainforest Alliance looks at environmental, social and economic sustainability in its assessments, which we felt was appropriate for this particular project."
And why not go Fairtrade and organic? "We didn't go for an organic certification because we don't insist that's part of sustainability -- in fact we think organic can sometimes be unsustainable -- so that wasn't really a consideration," Gorin explained.
"With Fairtrade, it's certainly not because it's not a good system -- we partner up with the Fairtrade Foundation with Ben & Jerry's ice cream [also owned by Unilever] -- so it's really about what's appropriate for this particular product and because of the different sizes of tea farms worldwide the Rainforest Alliance was the most appropriate partner in this case."
Unsurprisingly, the Rainforest Alliance had good things to say about the partnership as well. Neville said: "Tea has definitely gone up the sustainable agenda because of Unilever's interest in sourcing sustainably produced tea, and we're excited to move into this area -- the Rainforest Alliance hasn't worked with tea-production before, which is badly in need of environmental, social and economic development.
"But the real benefits are the ones accrued by the tea-farmers in the ground."
06 February 2008 04:28am
It's great that you're taking action on such an important cause. I myself have found a petition where we can make a statement no matter where we're from. Also, as we gain signatures, money is donated to the Rainforest Action Network.
www.petitionearth.com/viewpetition.php?id=73
We must stand strong on such an important issue.
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