case study: Pukka Herbs
Pukka’s purpose is to nurture healthier, happier lives through powerful organic plants. In 2019, Pukka declared a climate and biodiversity emergency and is taking bold action on these crises.
what steps have you taken in your effort to tackle the climate emergency?
Our strategy presents a bold sustainability vision including regenerative organic agriculture. We focus on working closely with farmers and growers to find natural, low-carbon ways to boost yields and support conservation.
Our goal is to be net zero by 2030. This is approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative as in line with emissions reductions needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.
to reach this goal we are:
Reducing emissions from our direct operations to zero. We’ve reduced them already by 95%, largely through switching to a 100% local renewable electricity supplier.
Based on our current growth projections, we’re aiming to reduce emissions from the manufacture and use of our products by 89% per million teabags — that’s an absolute emissions reduction of 43% compared with 2017.
We’ll balance the remaining emissions by capturing carbon in soil and trees both within (and outside) our supply chain.
We’re supporting biodiversity to avoid ecosystem collapse through our commitment to certified organic and FairWild products, and continuing to use Regenerative Organic Agriculture practices in partnership with our farmers and suppliers.
Since December 2017, we’ve planted 700,000 trees with our partner TreeSisters, who plant over two million trees a year across eight tropical ecosystems — supporting restoration through reforestation.
As we expand internationally, we’re finding new 1% for the Planet non-profit partners in the countries where we are growing. For instance, Soul Fire Farm in the US, is an Afro-Indigenous centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system.
what were some of the hurdles you encountered, and how did you overcome them?
Carbon mapping revealed that over 75% of our carbon emissions were from from sources we didn’t own or control (scope 3). Reducing our ‘crop to cup’ emissions is critical but challenging. To tackle this we encourage customers to avoid overfilling the kettle and use an eco-kettle where possible.
We’re encouraging customers to switch to a green energy supplier too. Like many consumer brands, where so much of our carbon footprint lies in the use of our products, achieving our science-based targets will require a huge global acceleration in grid decarbonisation.
In 2019, we ran our second DoNation challenge to encourage Pukka people to reduce our collective carbon footprint – which we linked to our company bonus. Over 100 colleagues made 915 pledges, saving over 2 million cups of tea worth of carbon or 122 tonnes.