Traditional Medicinals' bags provide a reliable source of income and social benefits for the small-scale family farmers who grow abacá (see above). Outstanding Contribution of Permanent Value Award by Museum Trust at ancient Mehrangarh Fort (see below).

Traditional Medicinals, a leading seller of wellness teas, continues as a pioneer in sustainability and environmental activism by making strides detailed in its 2016 Sustainability Report. By investing in stakeholders, the Traditional Medicinals team is proving that they can successfully help conserve the environment, support their people and protect the future of our planet. These initiatives have awarded the company some of the highest accolades in the industry.

The company, which has been a Certified B Corp since 2010, was honored to receive “Best for the World” award in 2016, landing in the top 10 percent for B Corp scores. Additionally, the company has been recognized with a “Green Power Leadership” award from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for Resource Solutions, as well as an international award for community development work with the Revive! Project® from the Mehrangarh Museum Trust in Jodhpur, India. These awards come after a significant year for the company, continuing an unwavering commitment to sustainability.

Tea drinkers can sit back and enjoy sipping one of 60+ products knowing that Traditional Medicinals is continuously taking action to improve sourcing, manufacturing and distribution. While the company sold 12.7 percent more product in 2016, the amount of packaging purchased actually decreased by 6 percent.

“This year has been an incredible one for our company. As we continue to grow, sustainability will always be at the core of our mission,” said Blair Kellison, chief executive officer at Traditional Medicinals. “Ultimately, we hope our success inspires others to share an awareness for the impact they have on the environment and sourcing communities.”

Commitment to Sustainability

Traditional Medicinals prioritizes sustainability with every company decision, mundane or major. As an early leader of both the organic and FairWild movements, Traditional Medicinals is always pushing beyond the anticipated requirements. It’s with a spirit of full transparency that Traditional Medicinals develops an annual sustainability report to share company and environmental successes. Developed under the Sustainable Food Trade Association guidelines and California Benefit Corporation public reporting requirements, Traditional Medicinals’ 2016 sustainability report highlights include:

• Purchased almost 500,000 pounds of fair-certified and ethically traded herbs, 98.9 percent of which were certified organic, a foundational part of our sustainable sourcing strategy to preserve farm and forest ecosystems.

• Became the first tea company to earn Non-GMO Project Verification for tea bags and strings.

• Replaced the staples in one third of tea bags with knots, eliminating over 200 million staples from production annually.

• Ran 100 percent on local, renewable power (a combination of energy from our own solar panels and electricity from a local geothermal plant), earning the company a Green Power Leadership Award from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for Resource Solutions.

• Sourced 77 percent of herbs from traditional growing regions, ensuring the highest quality.

• Shared plant and sourcing stories on its blog, Plant Power Journal, with close to 800,000 unique visitors in 2016.

Ensuring a Future for Sourcing Communities

With a business model dependent on a reliable supply chain of ever-increasing quantities of unique and high-quality medicinal plants, Traditional Medicinals has discovered that trusting, long-term and equitable trade relationships can enable rural or indigenous supply communities to become sustainable, economically viable and self-reliant.

In 2009, Traditional Medicinals launched the Revive! Project to reduce poverty and remove the barriers to community empowerment through organic agriculture in farming communities that cultivate senna, the herb used in the company’s Smooth Move® teas. Watch "When She Catches Rain" and "When She Has a Bike" to learn how the Revive! Project is helping transform lives. While Revive! is driven by a better future for these sourcing communities, Traditional Medicinals Goodwill Ambassador Nioma Narissa Sadler was honored to receive the Outstanding Contribution of Permanent Value Award by Museum Trust at the ancient Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India this past May. The Award, presented by His Highness Maharaja Gajsingh II, is only extended to one individual or organization per year, and had never been bestowed upon a foreigner or a woman in the past.

“We were humbled to receive such significant recognition from His Highness Maharaja Gajsingh II,” said Sadler, who is also the co-founder of Traditional Medicinals Foundation. “Awards such as this one bring necessary visibility to the needs of the international communities we support.”

Beyond Revive!, the company teamed up with its tea bag supplier this past year to engage with small family farming cooperatives growing abaca fiber in the Philippines. Overall, Traditional Medicinals has contributed $200,000 to social engagement work this year alone, in addition to over $1,000,000 that have been contributed to the Revive! Project to date.

For an in-depth look at Traditional Medicinals’ sustainability commitment, visit the 2016 Traditional Medicinals Sustainability and Benefit Corporation Annual Report.

About Traditional Medicinals

Traditional Medicinals, Inc., a California Benefit Corporation, Certified B Corporation and California Certified Green Business, is a leading seller of wellness tea in the U.S. and the pioneer of the wellness tea category in the U.S. and Canada. Traditional Medicinals is also the leading seller of both organic tea and Fair Trade Certified™ herbal teas in the U.S. and Canada. The company is passionate about connecting people with plants and sharing centuries-old wisdom of how to use them. Their more than 50 high quality wellness teas are formulated by herbalists using pharmacopoeial grade herbs. This is one of the defining qualities that sets Traditional Medicinals apart from many leading tea brands. Founded in 1974, Traditional Medicinals is an independent company that embraces sustainability, ingredient quality, and social and environmental activism. For additional information, visit www.traditionalmedicinals.com.

Traditional Medicinals

Traditional Medicinals

For nearly forty years, we’ve been passionate about connecting people with plants. And we're equally as passionate about passing along the centuries-old wisdom of how to use them. So even though our look has changed, our aspirations remain the same: help you discover the power of plants. We differentiate ourselves by our investment in the quality systems, research, testing and pharmacopoeial quality herbs. We were and are pioneers in the wellness tea categories and will continue to lead the way. We don’t just make formulas because they sound good. Every tea and herbal product that we make must have sufficient evidence of safety, quality and efficacy in support of our claim statements and formulation rationale.

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