Project Thea

Reducing complexity. Improving clarity. Building a more effective tea sector.

What is Project Thea?

Project Thea is a two-year project run by ETP on behalf of the Global Tea Coalition – an industry forum bringing together senior leaders from across the tea sector to address shared challenges.

The project aims to align and simplify how human rights and environmental data is collected across the tea sector – reducing the multiple, duplicative requests placed on producers while giving buyers the standardised, comparable data they need to meet their human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) obligations.

Project Thea will not create a new certification scheme, nor replace existing certifiers nor duplicate existing efforts. It is not a compliance audit framework.

Instead, it will build on what already works in the sector, take stock of previous initiatives that have addressed this challenge, identify opportunities to bring these together, and align them wherever possible

What will Project Thea deliver?

Project Thea aims to bring together key industry actors to design a more coordinated and practical system for sustainability data and reporting in tea.

It aims to deliver a global data tool that identifies, aligns and agrees with the sector on:

What human rights and environmental information is requested and collected (the core set of data points)
How that data should be read and interpreted across the industry
The principles under which data will be used, shared and protected – including who has access and ownership.

Project Thea will focus on these three areas. However, it also recognises two critical enablers for putting a HREDD data solution into practice, which will be considered throughout the project: how data is validated, drawing on existing approaches to verification; and the processes and infrastructure through which data is collected, shared, managed, stored and updated.

The project will take shape as the work progresses with Thea’s Working Group and as we listen to key stakeholders in the tea sector.

Updated 7 August 2026

Status: On-track

Why Project Thea?

In May 2025, The Global Tea Coalition, an industry forum bringing together senior packer and producer leaders, mandated ETP to explore the tea sector’s ongoing sustainability requirement challenges: the growing complexity, duplication and lack of clarity of expected standards and data required of producers, alongside the increasing data needs for buyers amid increasing expectations for them to conduct HREDD.

In June 2026, ETP hired a dedicated Project Lead to drive this work forward and established a Project Thea Working Group, comprising representatives from both producers and buyers.

Project Thea will be running from 1 July 2026 to 1 July 2028.

Who is developing this work?

Project Thea’s work is being developed through a dedicated, time-bound working group with representation from across the supply chain, and led by Laura Trevino, Senior Project Lead at ETP UK.

This project has been financed by 11 tea producer and buying organisations, who are jointly members of the Thea Working Group. This group is not exclusive of ETP membership; it brings together ETP members and non-members, and is composed by:

Browns Plantations, Camellia PLC, Luxmi Tea, PGI Group, Tata Consumer Products Ltd, Bettys & Taylors Group, Ostfriesische Tee Gesellschaft GmbH & Co. KG (OTG), Twinings, Ringtons Ltd, Finlay Beverages, and Lipton Tea & Infusions.

Who can contribute to Project Thea?

ETP welcomes all stakeholders in the tea sector to contribute and share feedback on Project Thea. ETP aims to ensure that Thea’s outputs are shaped by the expertise and practical experience that already exists within the sector, and that all voices are heard.

To receive further information about Project Thea you can contact the Project Lead: Laura Trevino at laura.trevino@etp-global.org

Tea producers and buyers are navigating an increasingly complex landscape of sustainability requirements. Multiple certification schemes, buyer-specific data requests and diverse codes of conduct alongside inconsistent reporting processes have createdunnecessary duplication and limited the availability of consistent and comparable data across the sector.

This context has created:  

Overlapping sustainability requirements from certification schemes and buyers

Repeated requests for the same information in different formats

Inconsistent reporting terminology, formats and data definitions

Multiple audits, assessments and supplier questionnaires

Limited access to standardised, comparable sustainability data

Rising administrative burden and compliance costs for producers

Producers: Less duplication and complexity in data requests received from buyers, saving time and cost and freeing up resources to address more important issues.
Buyers: More consistent, standardised, and comparable data, giving better insight to inform due diligence, mitigate and address human rights and environmental risks.

Efficiency: Building on existing initiatives and work already commissioned by the industry, rather than starting from scratch. This will involve replicating and standardising what’s working well and drawing on lessons from past and current approaches.

Inclusivity: Keeping the full range of industry stakeholders informed from the outset and factoring their insights into the design and throughout the project. This will include small and large producers, tea associations, brands, packers, traders, retailers, certifiers, civil society and other industry partners.

Practicality: Delivering an industry-led data solution that simplifies how HREDD data is collected and shared, and one that is implementable by both producers and buyers.

Transparency: Being transparent about the process from the start and making the outputs freely available for the benefit of the industry. For example, an agreed single global set of data collection questions will be accessible to anyone who wants to adopt them.

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