Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) is an alliance of 20 internationally tea traders who share vision in developing tea industry with social equality and environmentally friendly approach. This partnership started in 1997 when a larger number of tea companies decided to work together to monitor the sustainability of their supply chain. These companies established this partnership and called it as Tea Sourcing Partnership which then had its name changed to ETP in 2004. Members of ETP are multi-national companies who own brand products which are easily found in common households and stores. In total, these companies have more than 50 brand names which are retailed in 100 countries.
ETP works hand-in-hand with certification program in tea industries to facilitate third party certification for areas of interests shared among the producers and ETP members. ETP standards include social and environmental dimensions. Baseline principles of ETP standards are derived from Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code according to International Labour Organization (ILO) convention. Environmental dimension of the ETP standard includes but not limited to the environmental management protection program; agrochemical storage, handling and disposal; protection and enhancement of biodiversity, soil conservation, water body conservation, energy consumption and waste management. Whilst in social dimensions, principles of ETP include good industrial practices, compliance against local law, collective bargaining which has best interest of the workers as its priority and to ensure compliance all of the relevant standards for countries in which the standard is applied. In cases in which standards and national/local law or regulation are contradictory, the applicable standard is whichever standard that offers the highest protection for the workers.