This is the first of many journal entries related to my sustainable design class, “If Products Could Tell Their Stories”, that I will be posting over the next few days. I am currently in a state of catch-up as I have neglected to share the work I have been doing for this class over the past months. So here we go. Let’s start from the top, here is my response to our first assignment.

Assignment Overview
Choose one product and review a published, peer-reviewed Life Cycle Assessment or Analysis, for discussion in class. What were the system boundaries chosen by the authors of the study? What life cycle stage had the greatest impact? Reference the study in your blog with a short description of the outcome.

Tea Life Cycle Analysis
For this assignment I selected tea, specifically Lipton Yellow Tea, as the product to investigate. The reason being, I am an avid tea drinker. I guess you could even say that I am a tea addict. I actually have on average anywhere from 3 to 5 cups of tea a day. Enough about me, let’s talk about tea.

The best life cycle assessment analysis that I was able to find was written by Sanne van der Wal, and it was titled “Sustainability Issues in the Tea Sector A Comparative Analysis of Six Leading Producing Countries”. This report was published in 2008 and was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Oxfam Novib. As you can tell from the title it focuses on production of tea in general, and not on Lipton Tea specifically.

This study focuses on the supply chain and packaging of tea products. In its own works, it “set[s] out to identify critical issues and to assess social, economic and ecological conditions in the tea sector in six leading producing countries from the perspective of sustainable development and poverty eradication.”

Based on this study it seems that tea production has the greatest impact both social and environmental. That said, which specific area associated to the production varies considerably by country (for example, is the impact social or environmental). Below is an overview of the impact tea production has on these different areas.

From a social perspective, working conditions on tea farms and plantations are usually poor. Most workers have no job security and are hired as temporary labor. They have little to security net should they fall ill, become pregnant, or face some other personal issue that inhibits them from working. Discrimination based on gender or ethnic lines is also widespread. Unfortunately, there is little prospects of finding better jobs in these regions and these workers often have little to no voice as trade unions do not exist, and governments do not provide much in terms of support.

From an environmental perspective, tea production has a strong impact on biodiversity due to de-forestation for farmlands and wood that is necessary to process tea. Pesticides that are commonly used often contaminate local water and soil, and can cause potential health risks for local ecosystems. Lastly, energy use is very high as most farms use outdated technologies that are inefficient to process tea.

The tea production industry is going through a restructuring phase driven by an increase in costs of production related labor and primary materials, coupled with falling prices due to increased competition. This has led to the closure of many large plantations, which were the traditional growers of tea, and has increased the importance of smallholders tea farms. This shift brings with it many challenges as it is harder to integrate these smaller producers into supply-chains that guarantee the quality, social and environmental standards, and traceability that are increasingly important.

For the foreseeable future the costs associated to tea production are likely to continue growing due to new food standards that are being implemented in many countries. Unfortunately, the implementation of these new standards is unlikely to raise the prices, and profits, associated to tea production and selling.

Unfortunately, the majority of the profits associated to tea production are likely to continue to be funneled primarily to multinational tea packers and brokers (such as Lipton). One clear example of this trend is illustrated by the fact that “while real prices for tea on the shop shelves remained stable, average real auction prices in the years 2000-2005 were roughly half of those in the eighties.”

These multinational organizations have been slow to adopt Corporate Social Responsibility measure, in comparison to similar industries such as coffee and bananas. More recently in-company and external CSR initiatives (e.g. certified by third-party NGOs) have started to become more prevalent due to consumer demands, and government regulations.

Resources & Credits
While doing the research for this assignment I found the website for an organization named Somo, that aims to be a center for research on multinational corporations. I’m sure this will be a great resource for my future project. Worth checking out if you are trying to find life cycle analysis related to products from multinational corporations.

I want to thank ralphrepo from flickr for the image of men laden with tea, taken in 1908. It is licensed under Creative Commons.

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