The second annual Hallbars Sustainability Reports Awards were revealed, and three tea companies took top honors.
Hallbars is an international research institute, focusing on annual sustainability reports, and Hallbars means “sustainable” in Swedish. The tea industry is just one of numerous industries that Hallbars judges and recognizes for the awards program.
In the tea category, the top three “Best in the World” Hallbars Awards were presented to:
1. T2Tea (Australia) for its “Sustainability Progress Report 2020,” 64 pages. To learn more about T2Tea, visit t2tea.com.
2. Lebensbaum (Germany) for its “Sustainability Report and Environment Statement: Transparent & Informative” 2019, 232 pages. To learn more about Lebensbaum, visit Lebensbaum.com/en.
3. English Tea Shop (United Kingdom) for its “Celebrating Prajãva Through Our Unique Model of Creating Shared Value - Impact Report 2019-2020,” 39 pages. To learn more about English Tea Shop, visit etsteas.co.uk.
Increasing Visibility for Sustainability Reports
For its awards program, Hallbars focuses on the sustainability reports themselves, as books, not the specific initiatives. They do not rate or certify the activities of the authors and publishers of the reports; instead, they select and honor the best-of-the-best as a way to encourage more readers to view the individual reports.
According to Hallbars, more and more corporations and institutions are publishing sustainability reports, a rapidly increasing trend over the past several years. However, the firm says that readers of these reports have not increased as fast.
A Key Communication Tool for Some Tea Companies
In 2020, Pelle Agorelius, CEO and one of the initiators of The Hallbars Awards, said, “The Hallbars Sustainability Reports Awards are important because they focus on the reports, which are the key communication tools of tea companies with their stakeholders about sustainability. These reports are increasingly essential to understand the corporations and the future. They are becoming the roadmap for future generations."
Agorelius recently told World Tea News that “These Sustainability Reports have been recognized as the most important this year in the tea sector. They provide insights on company cultures with high ambition and great results. These reports can become benchmark for others.”
To learn more about the award program, visit Hallbars.org.