More tea Vicar?
I was looking around the Internet for sites related to ethical buying and came across a site for the Ethical Tea Partnership (http://www.ethicalteapartnership.org) who seem to provide vague information about some form of ethical partnership with tea companies. Included are R Twining & Company Ltd (make Twinings products), Unilever (make PG Tips and Lipton), Jacksons of Piccadilly and Tetley. All these companies with their brands scored lowest on the Ethiscore (site that analyses and scores products and companies based on ethics) site getting a score of 6 or below. Missing from these supposedly ethical-minded brands are the most ethical (according to Ethiscore) such as Equal Exchange, Hampstead Tea & Coffee Co., Teadirect, Suma, Clipper, Percol and Traidcraft.
Given that the companies with the poorest scores were present but the companies with the best scores were absent, I am guessing that this Ethical Tea Partnership is an empty-gesture.
I examined their "Achievements & Targets" page and found their claims to be just words that don't actually tell you anything. The first 2 claims talk about monitoring, which in itself doesn't result in any change, just monitoring. They haven't said they've reacted to their findings. The 3rd claim says they worked closely with tea estates, probably the same way corporations work "closely" with the community, which again tells you very little about what they've done. Their other claims include extending the reach of their initiative, working with their own members to develop more guidelines, launching a newsletter and expanded their team of staff in London. That covers all their claims for 2005, and I feel they have achieved nothing that can be regarded as a real change or ethical improvement of the companies and producers. 2006 sees them monitoring things further, expanding further, involve themselves in joint projects and appointing another representative. This is another set of targets that will result in no real ethical change.
They do have an Independent Monitoring page where they outline the monitoring of health and safety, treatment of workers and unions and employees negotiating renumeration packages. This sounds like a step in the right direction, but since it is another set of monitoring that hasn't been reflected on their achievements page I remain very skeptical.
I am convinced that this is nothing but a public relations exercise with no aim to make any real difference. If they really wanted to trade ethically, why wouldn't they work to attain a Fair Trade status from the Fair Trade Foundation? These companies still don't meet the minimum payment Fair Trade criteria for the purchase of their tea, and the Ethical Tea Partnership doesn't actually set any specific targets or criteria for anything. On the websites for each of the members of the scheme, the companies harps on about how being part of this partnership makes them all ethical and responsible.
If you want to buy tea that is sourced ethically, please just stick with the Fair Trade logo..
or Soil Association Ethical Trade logo..
(as long as it's not stuck on anything from Unilever or Nestle).
Given that the companies with the poorest scores were present but the companies with the best scores were absent, I am guessing that this Ethical Tea Partnership is an empty-gesture.
I examined their "Achievements & Targets" page and found their claims to be just words that don't actually tell you anything. The first 2 claims talk about monitoring, which in itself doesn't result in any change, just monitoring. They haven't said they've reacted to their findings. The 3rd claim says they worked closely with tea estates, probably the same way corporations work "closely" with the community, which again tells you very little about what they've done. Their other claims include extending the reach of their initiative, working with their own members to develop more guidelines, launching a newsletter and expanded their team of staff in London. That covers all their claims for 2005, and I feel they have achieved nothing that can be regarded as a real change or ethical improvement of the companies and producers. 2006 sees them monitoring things further, expanding further, involve themselves in joint projects and appointing another representative. This is another set of targets that will result in no real ethical change.
They do have an Independent Monitoring page where they outline the monitoring of health and safety, treatment of workers and unions and employees negotiating renumeration packages. This sounds like a step in the right direction, but since it is another set of monitoring that hasn't been reflected on their achievements page I remain very skeptical.
I am convinced that this is nothing but a public relations exercise with no aim to make any real difference. If they really wanted to trade ethically, why wouldn't they work to attain a Fair Trade status from the Fair Trade Foundation? These companies still don't meet the minimum payment Fair Trade criteria for the purchase of their tea, and the Ethical Tea Partnership doesn't actually set any specific targets or criteria for anything. On the websites for each of the members of the scheme, the companies harps on about how being part of this partnership makes them all ethical and responsible.
If you want to buy tea that is sourced ethically, please just stick with the Fair Trade logo..
or Soil Association Ethical Trade logo..
(as long as it's not stuck on anything from Unilever or Nestle).