Our history

Throughout our history, we have pioneered new and innovative approaches to addressing the issues in tea, continuously evolving and learning along the way. The organisation we are today has been shaped by the collective efforts of our members, partners, and people working in tea.

The Tea Sourcing Partnership – the precursor to ETP – was set up in 1997 by a group of tea companies with a vision of adopting a coordinated approach to addressing ethical issues in the tea supply chain.

At the time, the Tea Sourcing Partnership’s approach was groundbreaking; there was limited experience with social and environmental standards in the sector, and the primary objective was to raise these by introducing supplier audits. As the membership grew, the organisation became the Ethical Tea Partnership.

However, audits are diagnostic tools, and alone they are not enough to address the fundamental issues that are impeding tea’s sustainability. In parallel to the Ethical Tea Partnership’s work, the global, multi-commodity certification industry was growing, with brands such as Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance gaining wider recognition than the Ethical Tea Partnership. The organisation evolved to implement projects in producing countries. and stopped supplier audits in 2019.

2020 was a pivotal point for ETP, as we developed our new strategy and shifted our entire focus to achieving long-term systemic change in tea, setting in motion the recent exciting developments for the organisation,.

2023

An expanded membership: ETP membership opened up to any company that packs, sources, or retails tea based in any country globally that is not listed in the UK’s sanction list.  We also introduced different levels of membership; Friend of ETP and ETP Affiliate.

Tea garden at dusk, Moran Tea Estate, Assam, India. Image: Copac Media/ETP

 A new brand identity

We updated our mission and purpose to more accurately reflect our strategic approach and after thorough consultation with ETP members and stakeholders, a new mission statement was developed.

An updated name

We also used this opportunity to update our organisation name, which is now ETP. Derived from Ethical Tea Partnership, we now refer to ETP just with the initials to acknowledge the complexities and varying interpretations which arise from the words ‘ethical’ and ‘partnership’.

Convening our members

We work with our members to tackle complex, deep-rooted issues that cannot be addressed sufficiently through certification alone.

Our members

Today, we work with our membership of international tea companies to tackle complex, deep-rooted issues that can’t be addressed sufficiently through certification alone. Building on our pioneering history, we convene tea companies, development agencies, governmental and non-governmental organisations to improve the lives of people in tea communities. We work in partnership to tackle the underlying issues that are holding back the sustainability of the sector.

Working with diverse partners

As our reach has expanded, so too have our partnerships. Building on our years of forging strong sector partnerships, we convene tea companies, development agencies, governmental and non-governmental organisations, to tackle the underlying issues that are holding back the sustainability of the tea sector.