The recipe for a better world

THERE can be few Yorkshire firms as iconic as Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate, renowned for the refined glamour of its tearooms and the high quality of its teas, coffees and cakes.

But perhaps less well known is the family-run firm's commitment to environmental issues, with five per cent of its annual profits ploughed into community and eco-projects both locally and abroad.

"We try to care about everything we do," said Bettys & Taylors group environment manager Jamie Hutchinson. "We try to do the right thing and that absolutely extends to the environment."

The results are deeply impressive. Part of the firm's ethical trading policy involves working with the Rainforest Alliance to ensure that tea and coffee growers, and the environment where they work, are all treated with respect.

Furthermore, since 1990 Bettys has planted more than three million trees around the world, and donated more than 1m to Oxfam. Its latest pledge is to save 1.5 million hectares of rainforest from destruction.

"We've been planting trees for many years now and we do a lot of it locally as well," Mr Hutchinson said. "We even take our own staff into the Dales, digging holes and planting trees."

This commitment to the environmental cause runs deep throughout the company.

"Our manufacturing site at Harrogate has just got a new waste contract, which means we have increased our recycling rate from 30 to 50 per cent, which is really quite significant," Mr Hutchinson said.

In the last two years, Bettys & Taylors has also changed its supply lines to reduce carbon emissions, using Teesport, in the north-east, instead of ports in the south of England.

"In the first year, this move will save 30,000kg of CO2, and by 2011, all of our tea and coffee will be supplied via Teesport," Mr Hutchinson said.

Other environmental innovations include thermal solar panels on bakery roofs, a rainwater collection system on warehouse roofs for flushing toilets, and a new van-washing system using recycled water.

Bettys & Taylors has also worked to reduce its packaging, making coffee packets one-third lighter and so saving an estimated 20 tons of packaging per year.

Staff are encouraged to walk or cycle to work and are also asked to come up with environmental "brainwaves" – a suggestion from one staff member at Taylors has reduced packaging waste by 25,000 tea cartons per year.

The firm is also working with a charity called Eako to convert 25,000 of its coffee sacks into reusable bags – with profits from their sale going to coffee farming projects in Nicaragua.