Sustainability

OUR PURPOSE

fulfilling a philosophy of kindness to people and nature

Planted 1 Mn cashew trees, annually contributing over LKR 2 Mn to the eastern economy

Supporting 3500+ differently abled children through the Rainbow Centre

Uprooted tea plants in degraded tea plantation to initiate a 3 km-long nature corridor

Empowering 2000 women through the Women's Development Programme

First open-air butterfly graden in Sri Lanka, home to 50 species of butterflies

Educating & empowering 3900+ youth through the Empower Culinary School and vocational training

Safeguarding 50 Kms of Sri Lankan coastline through the Beach Caretaker Programme

Scholarships for 500+ individuals through the MJF Scholarship Programme

First urban arboretum established with more than 500 plant species

Donated equipment worth LKR 64 MN, strengthening the healthcare sector during COVID

Provision for 517 plantation, non-worker and staff families affected by COVID-19

Supported the Department of Wildlife to gazette Kayernkerni coral reef as a marine sanctuary

Empowering over 2000 small entrepreneurs for better livelihoods

Established Sri Lanka’s first dedicated research station for climate change (led by a corporate)

Providing care and welfare for over 2,000 children of Dilmah tea garden workers daily through Child Development Centres.

Initiated Bee a Keeper project to protect, research and educate about precious wild bees.

OUR SUSTAINABILITY CULTURE, SINCE 2000

Over the last 21 years we have reached significant milestones in our packaging and business sustainability journey, trailblazing packaging innovations within our industry

Began the process of eliminating the plastic in our tea packs by introducing a tear strip design

Packaging Breakthrough: Pyramid tea bags changed to PLA - a plant-based material.

Packaging that contains 10 tea envelopes (10E) was changed to include a window to reduce material usage

Continuous material reduction measures in tea tags, bags and packs.

Environmental impact of end-product included in the selection criteria when investing in new machinery.

Eliminated the plastic overwrap in 80% of tea packs using tear strip design

All inner cartons were delivered by suppliers, wrapped in kraft paper, which has now been discarded. And 75% of inner cartons have switched to reusable corrugated inner cartons and a system is in place to return them to suppliers.

Eliminated 421,052 Kgs of plastic from packaging Production lines were converted to use 100% PLA based filter paper in 2020

While celebrating the achievements in packaging sustainability during the past two decades, this year we have

DILMAH TEA PACKAGING SUSTAINABILITY

Product Range	Format	Tea Bag	Overwrap
DILMAH PREMIUM TEA	PaperEnvelopes FoilEnvelopes String & Tag Tagless	98% Compostable 98% Compostable Reaching from 98%to 100% Compostable Reaching from 98% to100% Compostable	Recyclable Recyclable
GOURMET TEA (English Breakfast & Earl Grey) HERBAL INFUSIONS	Envelopes String & Tag	98% Compostable 98% Compostable	Recyclable
Exotic /Fun Tea CEYLON GREEN TEA	Envelopes String & Tag	99% to 100% compostable
EXCEPTIONAL TEA t-SERIES VIVID TEA SELECTION SILVER JUBILEE	Envelopes String & Tag	100% compostable 100% compostable 100% compostable 100% compostable	Recyclable Recyclable Recyclable

Product Range

Format

Tea Bag

Overwrap

DILMAH
PREMIUM TEA

PaperEnvelopes

FoilEnvelopes

String & Tag

Tagless

98% Compostable

Reaching from 98%to 100% Compostable

Reaching from 98% to100% Compostable

Recyclable

GOURMET TEA

(English Breakfast & Earl Grey)

HERBAL INFUSIONS

Envelopes

String & Tag

98% Compostable

Recyclable

Exotic /Fun Tea

CEYLON GREEN TEA

Envelopes

String & Tag

99% to 100%
compostable

EXCEPTIONAL TEA
t-SERIES
VIVID TEA SELECTION
SILVER JUBILEE

Envelopes

String & Tag

100% compostable

Recyclable

At present we have the capacity to produce

OVER 2.5 MILLION BIODEGRADABLE TEA BAGS

per day at Dilmah

CARBON NEUTRAL DILMAH

Carbon Neutral in 2018 - Carbon Negative by 2030

CARBON NEGATIVE BY 2030

Investing in continuous improvements to be carbon negative by 2030

Reliance on Renewable Energy

Cumulative capacity

Capacity of Solar panels to be installed

We are also committed to keep our environment and sensitive ecosystems free of plastic & othernon-biodegradable materials while strengthening impacted communities

ALL OUR INITIATIVES COLLECTIVELY CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS
ACHIEVING 12 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs)

STATE OF THE ART RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Our commitment to Taste, Goodness and Purpose extends to our people and their families

To safeguard our premises from bacteria and viruses we have Implemented an ionisation system, resulting in enhanced safety of our people, workplace and products. This provides additional safety from COVID-19 as well.

We abide by the pillars of labour, health and safety, environment and business ethics guidelines laid out in SMETA.

Our health and safety committee Includes 25% of worker representation

We have a comprehensive and updated package in place that includes SMETA (Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit)

THE ASSURANCE OF QUALITY

a commitment to achieving the highest standards for manufacturing, materials and process excellence

THE COMPANY IS CERTIFIED IN COMPLIANCE WITH

ISO 9001:2015
Quality Management System

ISO 14001:2015
Environmental Management System

FSSC 22000
Food Safety Management System

BRC Global Standard Food Safety

Rainforent Alliance Chain of Custody

Organic product cetifications - EU

Organic product certifications USDA NOP

Organic product certifications - JAS

While complying with other global standards and certifications we abide by the guidelines laid out by SMETA under the pillar of labour; and have the following in place:

Human rights policy addressing supply chain, community and stakeholder engagement, valuing diversity, freedom of association and collective bargaining, safety and health at theworkplace, workplace security, child labour, work hours, wages and benefit and guidance and reporting for employees
Anti-bribery and corruption policy
Employee contract/agreements complying with local laws
Compensation and benefits policy
Communicating policies and procedures of the facility to all employees
Training sessions including induction and refresher courses
Internal audits to monitor level of compliance with social compliance standards
A compliance officer has been appointed
Free personal protective equipment for workers
Formal grievance handling procedures in place

Along with other global standards and certifications

2021 HIGHLIGHTS...

We are designing products that are more sustainable, reduce waste and eliminate plastic

CAFÉ RANGE

In 2021, we launched a café range which is fully biodegradable. (Paper envelopes and biodegradable teabags)
The café line can be experienced in 8 variants:

NUMBER OF IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS BEING STUDIED IN FY 2020/2021

Replaced tin caddies in our Dilmah Inspirations range with paper-based canisters in 3 stock keeping units (SKUs). Launched in Australia this range is available for loose leaf tea

IMPROVING ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

In our efforts to introduce environmentally sustainable packaging, continuous research is carried out on biodegradability and compostability of packaging in both home and industrial composting environments which aid us in sourcing suitable materials

Home Composting

Industrial Composting

On our Sustainable journey in material source reduction, Dilmah had conducted an in-depth evaluation in DPI values and successfully reduced ink consumed for corrugated outer in-house printing by 45% to 50% per annum.

IMPLEMENTED AN IONISATION SYSTEM FOR IMPROVED HEALTH AND SAFETY DURING COVID

Bipolar Ionisation system
Our installed Bipolar Ionization units produce Bio–Climate Negative Ions (The Air Vitamin) to proactively destroy any unhealthy microorganism by damaging the cells of the viruses and reacting with protein of the virus, and then deactivate the virus

Plasma Air’s ionisers use proactive air purification technologies to safely deactivate airborne viruses.

Bipolar ionisation creates millions of negative ions, a proven method of virus destruction.

Recent tests by the Spanish government show that Plasma Air products have been proven to reduce Covid-19 surrogate by 99% airborne and 80% on surfaces.