Bogawantalawa –World’sfirst tea company toachieve Carbon Neutral Certification
Bogawantalawa Tea Estates PLC, renowned for its outstanding quality of tea grown in the ‘Golden Valley’ nestling in the central hills, isperhaps the world’sfirst tea growing, manufacturing and marketing companyoffering uncompensated Carbon Neutral Teas from its stateof the art Carbon Neutral Facilities.
The Carbon Neutral Certifications were awarded by the Sri Lanka Climate Fund under the Ministry of Environment after verifying all three levels of direct, indirect and other GHG Emissions by the company. All units of Bogawantalawa Tea Estates PLC & Bogawantalawa Tea Marketing (Pvt) Ltd are covered under these certifications.
Jayampathy Molligoda, Executive Deputy Chairman of Bogawantalawa Tea Estates commented “As a large scale grower, manufacturer and marketer of tea, our objective is to contribute to managing global warming and climatic change for our future generations. We also ensure sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems in our facilities. To be among the first in the world as a Carbon Neutral Tea company gives us great pride, and is a milestone for not only the company but more importantly, for the country.”
Bogawantalawa Tea Estates PLC and Bogawantalawa Tea Marketing (Pvt) Ltd maintain many initiatives to meet the objective of being a Carbon Neutral Tea grower, manufacturer and marketer. Among the range of on-going initiatives are promoting organic fertilizers, recycling and waste management, harnessing renewable energy sources. Their agroforestry activities also contribute to long term sustainable development for the community as well as the estates. The company maintains plantation forestry, social forestry and conservation forestry initiatives, and manage nurseries with 200,000 seedlings per year, aiming to plant 160,000 trees annually. The company has already passed the milestone of planting 500,000 trees.
Continuous R&D initiatives are undertaken to utilize natural resources than chemical fertilizers to protect and enhance natural soil quality and microbial activity. Bogawantalawa Tea Estates are also adopting alternate means of generating power and are developing sites for generating renewable energy via hydro and solar power and are also focusing on research on wind power. Efficient water management is another important initiative adopted using effective methodologies such as drip irrigation, moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting and water management awareness creation.
Bogawantalawa Tea estates are certified to the highest international accredited standards in terms of sustainability, food hygiene and ethics. All estates in the golden valley are certified under Rainforest Alliance, Ethical Tea Partnership, Fairtrade, ISO 22000:2005 and ISO 9001:2008.
