The British American Tobacco (BAT) has launched a dedicated week aimed at highlighting its goals and achievements around its enhanced Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) ambitions.
Across its digital channels, the company will devote the entire week to sharing its sustainability story with the outside world.
In 2020, the company announced its new corporate purpose to deliver A Better Tomorrow by reducing the health impact of its business, putting sustainability front and centre.
Since March last year, BAT has recorded a number of achievements, notably its inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the 19th consecutive year in the Index series and what’s more, being the only tobacco company to be so honoured.
Other achievements by the company are the launch of the industry’s first ever Human Rights report; its award of an ‘A’ score for climate change by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and its recognition as a Diversity Leader by the Financial Times in its inaugural Diversity Leaders report.
Some of the ambitions the company announced in 2020 are increasing its non-combustible products to 50 million by 2030, achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 and accelerating other existing environmental targets to 2025, and eliminating unnecessary single-use plastic and making all plastic packaging recyclable by 2025.
Remarkably, the company is not stopping there on its transformation journey. In December 2020, BAT announced its COVID-19 vaccine candidate had progressed to human trials further demonstrating its commitment to innovation and science.
BAT also announced, last week, that it is on track in its ambition to increase the number of consumers of non-combustible products, doubling the rate of consumer adoption in the second half of 2020.
Speaking on these transformations, Kingsley Wheaton, Chief Marketing Officer, BAT, said, “One of the core commitments we made in 2020, was to continually track and report on our sustainability progress. This new BAT ESG Week gives us the chance to share our continued progress with the outside world, given our purpose-led ambition to reduce the health impact of our business.”
The ESG Week will be followed by the launch, on March 9, of BAT’s Annual ESG Report, which will provide details on all the company’s sustainability initiatives and progress.