The Intragovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report, a report prepared by a body of experts convened by the United Nations, warned that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would likely be out of reach by the end of the decade.
This is a difficult task. Humans have already heated the planet by an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century and now we as a humanity will need to come together to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To contextualize, the amount of carbon dioxide that has been emitted in the last decade is the same amount that we’ll have to stay under.
One of the main points found in the report, that can make truly a difference, is to stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by the early 2050s.
The earth and its residents are in a climate emergency as stated by Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General.
While countries all over the world are being provided lists and lists of how they could move ahead and try and clean up billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Nepal Tea has finally taken the leap from an Limited Liability Corporation to Public Benefit Corporation. One of the major decisions that has followed this has been in the works ever since its inception in 2016 i.e. our pledge for the planet.
This earth month, Nepal Tea pledges itself to aid the arduous task ahead of us as humanity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through regenerative agriculture.
Anyone who works in the tea industry knows the motherlode of potential, in all senses of the word, within a single tea plant. It is already nothing short of a miracle that a single tea plant can produce myriads of flavors but to add to it all a single tea plant lives more than 100 years while producing harvestable leaves for the majority of the years.
It means that tea plants sequester carbon, all through photosynthesis. The carbon ends up primarily in the tree’s trunk, branches and leaves as well as the ground thanks to the microbes in the soil. And because tea plants once planted in the ground aren’t moved or tilled for decades, the carbon stays put.
We knew the perennial nature of tea trees were an advantageous but it was when we went through National Institute of Health from 2020 titled Assimilating Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide In Tea Gardens of Northeast India that we realized there was so much we still needed to know about the impact Nepali tea farms could make.
In this study, it was found that tea bushes sequestrated 52.7 to 61.3 percent of the total carbon dioxide sequestered by the plantations in a tea garden. The study found that 2.5 acres of tea garden, the size of an average Indian tea garden, sequestered roughly 5,100 kg-CO2/yr in the tea bushes.
These findings of the study and curiosity only strengthened our belief that Nepal Tea Collective as a PBC could make a small but real difference. It just needed an insane amount of commitment and unending passion.
Hence, from this year forward, Nepal Tea Collective pledges to plant one tea sapling for every order that we receive. And to celebrate every single customer that has helped us reach this valuable milestone, we are over the moon to share that we’re planting 10,000 tea saplings. Each carbon sequestering sapling represents the thousands of customers we met and served over the course of the last six years! We were supposed to do it this month but logistics needs us to push it to May. Oh well it is earth month every month so please expect photos of these new tea babies finding a new home soon!
In the grand scheme of things, we know we’ll be making only a small dent if any on our race against climate change but we couldn’t stay put! We know there's a lot to do and even more to learn and know. We don’t claim to know everything but we are, as always, open to learning and collaborating! So if you have any idea, the crazier the better, then hit us up. We’re open to listening, learning and trying new things out.
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