Numi Tea: Activating Purpose for a Better World

Numi was one of the first 30 companies to be certified as a B Corporation in 2006. Certified B Corps are purpose-driven companies that create benefits for shareholders, employees, their community, and the environment.

Numi Organic Tea blends premium organic teas and herbs with only 100% real ingredients, allowing nature to speak for itself. As a pioneering, quadruple-bottom line company (people, planet, product, profit), Numi sources its teas and ingredients directly from fair labor gardens that pay farmers and workers fair wages that allow their families to thrive. Over half of Numi’s teas are sourced from Fair Trade Certified gardens, which empower tea growers to invest Fair Trade premiums back into their communities. Fair Trade premiums earned on tea gardens have helped procure and develop new roads, cooking stoves, mosquito nets, schools, college scholarships, maternity benefits, onsite medical staff, and life insurance for farming families. Numi is a company committed to reducing its impact on the planet through ecologically responsible choices in sourcing, production, and recycled and non-GMO packaging. Numi Organic Tea sources organic teas and herbs, which help protect the health of farmers, the consumer, and the planet. Numi Organic Tea uses natural, biodegradable, filter-paper tea bags, rather than GMO corn or plastic “silky” tea sachets. Numi’s tea boxes are made of 85% post-consumer waste, printed with soy-based inks, and without unneeded shrink-wrap.

Why tea is part of a climate-conscious diet

For almost 5,000 years, farmers have grown tea trees in harmony with nature, using regenerative methods that enhance biodiversity, preserve wildland, and store carbon in the soil. When done right, organic tea cultivation is a system of perfect ecological balance. Numi is proud to support this lineage by sourcing directly from growers who steward traditional tea farming knowledge.

These regenerative tea growing practices make for a cup that’s less carbon-intensive than other drinks, like coffee. The carbon footprint of a cup of Numi tea is 86% lower than a cup of conventional espresso, and 37% lower than a cup of sustainably produced espresso.²�

Add in sustainable choices like organic certification, plant-based packaging, and Climate Neutral certification, and you’ve got a cup that’s good for you and good for the planet.�

Measure and Label

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. To get a full picture of our climate impact, Numi conducted a complete greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory from farm to warehouse. Then we translated that data into a Carbon Footprint Label for each of our products, broken out by emissions category: Ingredients, Packaging, Transport, and Preparation. Being transparent about our emissions means you can make a more informed choice about the products you consume, and holds us accountable for future reductions.

Reduce Emissions

As a Climate Neutral Certified business, we’re on a journey to reduce emissions throughout our supply chain. That means we measure, reduce, and offset 100% of our annual Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Using our farm-to-warehouse GHG inventory, we prioritize areas that yield the greatest reductions, from helping producers transition to renewable energy, to reducing corrugate in our shipping. The tea estates we work with draw carbon from the atmosphere on a net basis, using regenerative practices like no-till farming, cover cropping, perennial planting, and agroforestry.

Offset Responsibly

For the last 10 years, Numi has worked with CarbonFund to offset 10,191 metric tonnes of CO2e from our business operations. We only offset what we can’t reduce, and we choose high-quality credits sourced from critically threatened ecosystems. Since 2018, we’ve purchased credits from Envira Amazonia in Brazil. The conservation project, which has protected nearly 500,000 acres of tropical rainforest, supports a transition in land ownership to local communities and establishes alternatives to cattle ranching, such as the collection of medicinal plants and açaí.

Use Plant-Based Packaging

We created Numi’s compostable* plant-based tea wrappers to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and open up pathways to a plastic-free future. Made from renewable non-GMO sugarcane, our wrappers displace 14.3 metric tonnes of petroleum-based virgin plastic per year and produce 67% lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional wrappers.¹ They perform better across all impact categories throughout their lifecycle, from energy resource use to pollution to ozone.

Advocate for Change

We fight for meaningful policy that prioritizes environmental justice and invests at the scale of the climate crisis. In partnership with the Climate Collaborative, Numi established a climate advocacy program to engage with policy makers on key legislative priorities priorities. Bills we’ve supported include the Advanced Clean Trucking Rule, California SB 525 (offshore wind), the Build Back Better Act, and other proposals to accelerate the shift to a post-fossil fuel economy.

Numi created compostable plant-based tea wrappers to eliminate plastic waste, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and open up pathways to a plastic-free future. We can’t ask consumers to be responsible for their waste if we’re not responsible for ours. Find out why these tea bag wrappers are a big deal.

How Does Composting Help Fight Climate Change?

Composting programs divert organic material like food scraps away from landfills, where they would otherwise emit methane, a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. When used in agriculture or gardening, compost actually enriches the soil and pulls carbon out of the atmosphere by fostering more plant growth. Healthy, compost-enriched soil is more resilient to climate change, and better withstands the effects of drought, flooding, or extreme weather events.

Local Compost: The Next Step

Composting programs are an essential tool in the fight against climate change. Currently, only around 5% of U.S. households have access to municipal composting. A growing number of cities and states are beginning to recognize the benefits of composting. Here are some steps you can take to advocate for compost in your local jurisdiction! If you don’t have access to municipal composting.

The Future of Packaging

Numi’s plant-based tea wrappers are a project 10 years in the making with the OSC Packaging Collaborative. Winner of the Flexible Packaging Achievement Silver Award for Sustainability, they have been recognized as a breakthrough in packaging innovation. But our vision doesn’t stop with Numi—our goal is to move the entire industry forward and make compostable packaging the norm.

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