How Eco-friendly is Bird & Blend

One of our founding principles is to do our bit for the planet. Driven heavily by Mike & Krisi themselves, leading positive change in the world around us is very important to us here at B&B. 

This was Krisi & Mike's first 'business plan', scribbled on a notebook in a Canadian pub back in 2012! You can see (if you can read the scrawl!) that the first two things they wrote down were: 'no waste', & 'environmental responsibility'! 

• The actual environmental impact, e.g. sometimes a product that has less plastic may end up contributing to higher carbon emissions, creating more waste, or having a negative impact on biodiversity. 
• That any changes do not negatively impact the quality and safety of products. 
• Our supply chain, e.g. we could find the most eco-friendly product or packaging, but if it has to be shipped further than our current option, this will create more carbon emissions.
• The type of businesses we are working with is: big businesses or small independents. This differs depending on the products we are considering, but it may mean making eco trade-offs.

For full transparency (as usual!), we have noted some of the considerations we have had to carefully discuss in order to take the best steps forward.

Packaging & Consumables

What we are looking for in the perfect material:

• Be food safe & have the necessary barrier properties to keep your teas fresh, as well as adhere to relevant legislation.
• Be strong enough to survive our packaging process, including running through machinery, ensuring it doesn't tear easily/get damaged before it gets to the customer.
• Be strong & versatile enough to cope with our vast range of ingredients, some of which are powdery, some are spiky, some are large, some are small, some are oiled, etc.
• Biodegrade quickly after use.
• For the pouches, they must be able to re-seal again for the customer.
• For the single serves, it must be easily tearable for the customer. 

As you can see, some of the above needs are fairly contradictory... to have something that is easily tearable but survives the manufacturing & tea packing stages. Having something that keeps a product fresh for an 18-month shelf life (& doesn't degrade at all), but when it's finished, decomposes within a year. 

Here are a few ways we improved packaging in 2025:

Matcha
25% improvement in the circularity score of our pots
Zero plastic: we removed the plastic tamper seal & replaced for aluminium ring pull
100% Recyclable at home. It’s all aluminium

Sticky Chai
100% home compostable pouch 
95% lighter: changing from a glass Kilner jar reduces the weight, meaning less emissions to transport & less energy to produce

For more information, check out our blog post all about our eco packaging.

Waste

We send zero waste to landfill. That's right, not one of our stores, offices, or warehouses sends any waste to landfill. Instead, it goes to an incinerator to be turned into energy.

This isn't the best & we would rather reuse, recycle, or compost more! That's why one of our sustainability aims is to become zero waste (meaning that 80% of our waste is recycled or reused).

Things we've done to help us reach this:

• In 2020, we purchased a cardboard shredding machine, meaning that nearly all of the cardboard that comes into our warehouse is shredded & used to pack your online orders.
• Our stores have dedicated food waste/compost bins where all the tea leaves and compostable cups go. You can also return your cups, & we will recycle them for you.
• Our stores send their cardboard boxes & bulk tea bag packaging back to our warehouses where they will be reused up to 4 times (or until they are no longer sturdy enough).

Carbon Footprint

We partnered with Greenly, a third-party software, to help measure our emissions. We’ve found improvements across nearly all transport indicators. We’ve also been able to reveal some hidden emissions from the purchase of products & services.

What we included in our calculations:

• Electricity & gas use in all our premises.
• Air conditioning units.
• Water use.
• Shipping of our products to our warehouse
• Shipping of our products to our customers.
• Business travel.
• Employee commuting.
• Energy use from home working.
• 100% green energy use for electricity at all premises
• Reduction in transmission from solar panels & green electricity use
  

We use the GHG protocol and ISO 14001 as a framework, and use the UK Gov conversion factors to calculate the CO2 emissions from each activity.

Net-Zero Emissions.

We are on a journey to Net-Zero by 2050. We recognise the impact our business operations have on the environment & aim to reduce our carbon footprint. We've already started the hard work of reducing our emissions by installing solar panels at our warehouse & using green energy for all of our retail spaces.

B Corp & Better Business

In 2022, we got certified as a B Corp. We then recertified in 2025, gaining X points to bring our current score to X. Being a B Corp is a core part of our brand identity, as it is a certification that centres on doing good with your business practices, which is what we originally set out to do.

We have also been supporting the Better Business Charter (and even went to the House of Commons to show our support!), which is a new initiative for businesses in the UK to do good.

MP Sian Berry even popped by our Brighton store to thank us for our support!

Teas for Trees

For every cup that we use in any drink across our stores, we donate 12p to the WPF, & for each donation of 12p, it will allow one tree to be planted.

🌳 We have planted a total of 318,583 trees from 2019 to 2025 🌳

 This equates to 497 metric tonnes of CO2 per year!

Currently, WPF are planting Mangroves in Madagascar, with another 10% being agroforestry trees (species designed to provide a secure source of food, & benefit local community needs), planted throughout Haiti, Nepal, Indonesia, Mozambique & Madagascar, depending on where they are needed.

Why Mangroves? They provide the best all-round benefit to our environment, as they have one of the highest carbon conversion rates - two to four times greater than mature tropical trees! - & contain the highest carbon density. They even help to protect coastal erosion, & help to restore the biodiversity for both land & sea, along with protecting offshore reefs!

Find out more about Teas for Trees here.

We encourage (& reward you!) when you support the environment too!

50p off when you bring your own cup

Did you know? You bring in any cup, thermos or vessel of your own & we will give you 50p off your drink as a thank you. 

Bring your tin back in & get a refill at 10% off! 

If you purchase a 150g tea tin from this range, you get a tea tin thrown in for free, or you can buy one of our empty tea tins here. We hope this will encourage you to bring it back & let us fill it up again - zero new packaging needed! As a thank you, yup, you guessed it, we will give you 10% off your refill! 

You can also bring any jar, bag, tin or vessel of your own to be filled with tea, & we will give you 10% off as a thank you. 

But, you don’t just have to fill it with tea, you could do what we do at HQ & use it as a pen pot on your desk, you could fill it with your favourite biscuits, or you could be creative and make a DIY gift, the possibilities are endless!

You can also reuse our matcha tins by filling them with whatever you like! One of our personal favourite ways is to use it as a tiny plant pot. 

Curious about anything in this blog? Pop an email to info@birdandblendtea.com, & we will be sure to help out!