Green brands: Clipper

Clipper is a drinks brand most well-known for its tea. 83% of people in our sustainable brand survey who had recently bought from the brand viewed it as sustainable.

Which? carried out a survey in February 2023 into member perceptions of sustainable brands. We asked members to rate how sustainable a brand was that they’d bought from in the last two years and then to give us their reasons why. 

We then took a further look at some of these brands to see whether the reality lives up to the perception.*

The top reasons given for Clipper’s sustainability were because the brand uses recyclable or minimal packaging (50% of respondents liked this) and because the brand carries sustainable certification (46%) – in this case most of the range is Fairtrade and some is organic.

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What environmental issues are associated with tea?

Many of the most serious issues associated with the tea industry are ethical rather than directly environmental. Working conditions on tea plantations can be extremely poor and pay is often well below the poverty line. Women are disproportionately affected as the majority of workers on the plantations are female. Child labour is also a significant issue.

An Oxfam study in 2019 found that workers in the Assam region were averaging wages well below the minimum living wage. Partly this is because plantations owners must legally provide certain services and benefits to their workers such as healthcare and childcare and this is essentially viewed as part of their wages. In reality, the standard of services provided is often so poor as so be barely existent. 

Buying Fairtrade-certified tea goes some way to helping improve worker conditions.

Tea also comes with the environmental issues associated with any crop grown as a monoculture. Heavy pesticide use means soil is degraded and eroded and biodiversity is reduced. Choosing organic tea or tea from smaller plantations will mitigate against this.

Tea bags and what they are made of is another distinguishing factor between brands - some are doing better than others on this front. 

Teabags can contain plastic used in the process of heat-sealing the bags. More and more brands have moved away from conventional fossil-fuel based plastic to what’s known as PLA (a biodegradable bioplastic). While PLA is better than conventional plastic, it is still plastic which means teabags are unlikely to break down in your home compost bin, though some can be industrially composted in council-collected food waste. 

Even better is to choose fully plastic-free bags or use loose leaf tea.

Find out more about which tea bags you can compost and those you can't

Clipper: in summary

It's worth bearing in mind that despite all brands having some inevitable shortcomings, the companies featured in this green brands guide have been selected by members as being more sustainable within their markets. 

These are generally brands doing significantly better than average in their sector and should be recognised as such.

Who owns Clipper?

Clipper, which began as a British company in 1984 is now owned by Ecotone, a French company which owns a number of other brands including Kallo, Mrs Crimble and Whole Earth.

It’s mainly known for its tea but also offers coffee (instant and ground) and hot chocolate.

Clipper and its packaging

This was picked out as an important factor by members who viewed Clipper as a sustainable brand in our survey. Clipper uses PLA (plant cellulose) in its teabags so no plastic originating from fossil fuel is used, but the bags still shouldn’t be put in your home compost. 

Clipper says you can snip open the bag and put the used leaves in your home compost, or put the whole tea bags in your kerbside food waste bin for industrial composting.

Clipper tea bags are unbleached, unlike many tea bag brands. The outer packaging box is made of easily recycled cardboard and they’ve recently replaced the unrecyclable foil wrap with a biodegradable (and home compostable) film wrap.

Clipper and certification

Much of Clipper’s product range is organic (and Soil Association certified) and the brand has committed to making any new products it develops organic certified.

Clipper also has a strong commitment to Fairtrade. It says it was the UK’s first Fairtrade tea company and is now the world’s largest Fairtrade tea brand.

Clipper says its sales generated £447,000 in Fairtrade premium in 2022 and this goes towards projects investing in social economic and environmental projects important to local communities. Specific examples Clipper gives are purchasing an ambulance in Mozambique or funding local hospitals and specialist equipment in South India.

All of its black and green teas are Fairtrade. Not every single ingredient it uses is Fairtrade, as it says it’s not always possible to source them. This includes herbs such as elderflower or nettle which aren’t yet available for Fairtrade certification.

Other Clipper sustainability information

Clipper’s tea is sourced across the globe but is blended in Dorset. It says its Beaminster factory is carbon neutral and 98% of its factory waste is recycled.

Clipper’s parent brand, Ecotone, is B-Corp certified. B Corp looks at a business’ standards across key areas of environmental, social and governance and only certifies businesses that achieve above a certain score.

Clipper currently doesn’t mention further plans for emissions reductions along its supply chain on its website.

Find out more about shopping sustainably: what supermarkets are doing about the environment, how to buy second-hand online, or what makes a green energy supplier.