Global Low Carbon Tea

Reducing energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and expense in tea production, starting with Kenya.

Changing the economic and environmental cost of tea

In Kenya, energy use accounts for over 50% of the cost of tea production – and prices are rising. Since many factories use old equipment and lack good energy management policies, there is scope to help them operate more efficiently.

We are developing global low carbon tea solutions, starting with the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), a national farmer organisation managing 70 tea factories, for 650,000 small-scale farmers.

2023-2024
Status: Completed

Policy

Private sector change

Project

Environment

Climate resilient agriculture

Net zero tea

Zero deforestation

Kenya

Programme overview

A partnership with German development agency GIZ, FAO and KTDA to deliver climate change and energy efficiency initiatives in Kenyan tea.

Programme partners

BMZ (Fund for Trilateral Cooperation with Asia) and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China (MARA) implemented through FAO and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), supporting GIZ and the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Kenya.

Our aim is to reduce energy consumption, CO₂ emissions and costs in Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) factories.

ETP is currently supporting a number of relevant projects within Kenya’s Nationally Determined Contributions, National Climate Change Action Plan, and Climate Smart Agriculture Strategy.

The partnership will also assess Kenya’s tea value chain, research low-carbon, climate resilient practices and technologies, and build the sector’s capacity to adopt them.

Finally, it will deliver policy recommendations and a roadmap towards a low-carbon, climate resilient tea value chain, with an emphasis on incentives for farmers and companies.

We co-designed and commissioned research with KTDA to look at the benefits, opportunities, and costs associated with co-firing briquettes in tea factory boilers. The research will be completed in 2024. We were commissioned by FAO to assess the policy and wider supportive landscape to drive low carbon tea production in Kenya and conduct research to be completed and published in 2024.

Together with GIZ, our energy efficiency programme has supported tea factories to improve their energy efficiency, reduce their fuelwood use, and ultimately reduce their carbon emissions.

We have also developed and run specialised training for staff at all levels in factories, bespoke to issues at their place of work. By embedding understanding, we encourage long-term commitment to energy-efficiency initiatives.

Key achievements

180,000-300,000

trees saved per year through factory energy efficiencies (2016-2020)

20,000+

tonnes of carbon emissions avoided each year (2016-2020)

Key contacts

Global Low Carbon Tea

Changing the economic and environmental cost of tea

Brian Ngwiri

Lewis Verrinder

Liberal Seburikoko

Peter Kangacha