Beyond Organic: The Business of Fair Trade, Carbon Negative Teas

For YPO member Subra Eassuwaren, CEO of tea and spice export company Eswaran Brothers Exports (Pvt) Ltd, humble beginnings are not just myth; they are part of his legacy.

The company was founded in 1943 by Eassuwaren’s grandfather, VTV Deivanayagam Pillai. Born in 1919 in South India, VTV was orphaned at the age of 12, moved to (then) colonial Ceylon, began working as a shop boy and through hard work and a dedication to spirituality, became the leader of one of the most respected trading houses in Sri Lanka. This family lineage of dedication to work and higher self is at the center of what makes the company successful today.

“In 2007 when we were trying to map out the core values and principles of our company, we talked about how my grandfather practiced corporate social responsibility. At the time, it wasn’t going into annual reports – looking after people around you was just what you did,” says Eassuwaren, who joined the YPO Colombo Chapter in the South Asia Region in 2013.

“We decided to make this one of our key selling points and build on the idea of responsibility which led to us to becoming the most sustainable tea company in the world.”

Most tea plantations are monocultures, the cultivation or growth of a single crop or organism. Monocultures can take a toll on the earth, upsetting the local ecological balance by eradicating the natural plants and animals, which feed each other the chemicals and minerals required to thrive. Eliminating this natural cycle from an ecosystem requires artificial fertilizers, used to boost crop yields at a great expense to local biodiversity.

In direct opposition to this are Eswaran’s plantations, with their commitment to protecting the environment for generations to come through a dedication to ecological design, engineering and integrated water resources management.

In order to achieve this, the company set themselves targets to ensure they were improving their indicator species; the more types of plants flourishing, the better likelihood of attracting a variety of butterflies. If frogs are alive and well in the soil, it means the water is relatively clean, and the more dragonflies in the ecosystem, the better it is doing.

Eswaran’s recent efforts to “water footprint” their tea products led them to focus sustainability endeavors not just on operational water usage, but water usage throughout the supply chain. Eswaran Brothers studied their grey water – the volume of water required to dilute pollution, green water – the amount of water incorporated into the product, and blue water – surface water or water taken from ground in order to mitigate environmental impact.

Eswaran Brothers achieved a major milestone in December 2010, when they became one of the first tea companies globally, and the first company in Sri Lanka, to achieve CarbonNeutral certification for their product, Tea so Tea. A Fair Trade, carbon positive tea, made as sustainable as possible by using only biodegradable materials and inks, offsets your personal footprint with every pack you buy.

“We call it ‘cradle to grave,’” says Eassuwaren. “The tea leaf is plucked, we make it, package it, ship it and place it on a shelf where somebody buys it, makes the tea then throws it away where it decomposes and creates carbon dioxide.”

Eswaran Brothers have partnered with the Conservation Carbon Company and Rainforests Rescue International to institute the Hiniduma Conservation Carbon Programme, which will grow endemic forest trees to protect against fragmentation, eventually reversing the process of centuries of deforestation.

“We studied a handful of farmers’ lands and then gave them trees to plant, both cash crops and forest trees. In order to qualify for the program the farmers had to come to training with us where they learned the benefits of organic farming, and the importance of biodiversity.”

Eswaran Brothers’ dedication to impact the environment has led to the creation of a product that, itself, speaks the language of positivity.

“Tea is a plant that only benefits the people and the environment around it,” says Eassuwaren.

The seven principles Eswaran Brothers base their business on, read simply enough:

Determination
Hard Work
Honesty
Courage
Love
Patience
Spirituality

One would be hard-pressed to find many businesses that not only adhere to these doctrines, but create a product that steeps their customers in them as well.

Winner of the Junior Chamber International 10 outstanding young Sri Lankans of 2011 award for the environment, the Eswaran Brothers were the recipients of the 2012 Responsible Business category of the Social Pioneer awards organized by the United Nations, Global Compact and were highly commended in the prestigious United Kingdom Energy and Environment Awards.

“There’s a long way to go and we are bumping and learning along the path,” says Eassuwaren. “But the idea is to create something that only does good.”

(The author of this article is Deborah Stoll from Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). This article first appeared in Impact Insights, the newsletter of YPO’s Social Engagement Network that connects more than 4,500 like-minded members around philanthropic issues.)