Project Overview

UPDATE: Visit our mini-site to explore the factors shaping the future of the tea industry

Tea is the world’s most consumed beverage after water. In the UK alone, approximately 130,000 tonnes of tea is consumed per year, 95% of it in tea bags. At the other end of the value chain, tea is produced in 35 countries around the globe and provides a vital source of employment, often in some of the world’s poorest areas.

Yet the global tea sector faces a host of different future challenges, from climate change, increased demand for energy and water, and competition for land use, to rapidly changing markets for tea.

Phase I of Tea 2030, which we ran in 2011 with the support of Unilever and Finlays, showed that, while there are initiatives already addressing some of these issues, many critical challenges remain to be solved, and achieving a sustainable future for tea will need wider collaboration, long-term thinking, innovation and a systems approach.

We're now launching Phase II of Tea 2030, bringing together leading stakeholders from across the tea value chain (from tea production to use to disposal). They are collaborating to:

build a shared understanding across the sector of the critical challenges it must tackle;
create a set of scenarios (descriptions of different possible futures) that explore both certain and uncertain trends affecting the sector's future and help identify risks and opportunities;
develop a set of collaborative innovation platforms and implementation plans, to start addressing key challenges.

If your organisation is involved in the tea value chain, and you would like to find out more about the results of Phase I, or the opportunities for and benefits of getting involved in Phase II of Tea 2030, please contact Ann-Marie Brouder.