uk bat.com - Environment

Environment

We will actively address the impact of our business on the natural environment

Adding value to our supply chain and the environment

We are working to actively address the impact of our business on the natural environment.

The challenge

We expect the effects of climate change to be felt more strongly in the coming years. Resulting changes to the environment could make it harder for us to source tobacco and make and distribute our products, as well as affecting the communities and landscapes in which we operate. The success of our business now and in the future also depends on biodiversity as it provides resources like clean water, healthy soils and timber.

We recognise that good environmental management is not only the right thing to do, but also makes sound business sense given how much we depend on natural resources for our products. Securing access to these resources, as well as being prepared for future changes, is key to ensuring the sustainability of our business.

Our approach

We work to address both our immediate environmental impacts and the likely environmental pressures on the business in the future. This involves risk assessments, performance management and making our operations more efficient.

Environmental problems cannot be solved by one company acting alone. They also need flexibility – what works in one part of the world might not in another. So we also aim to work more with local communities and in collaboration with other international organisations.

We have had a comprehensive Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) management system for many years. We monitor and reduce our direct environmental impacts by making our operations more efficient. We also address our indirect impacts by choosing suppliers with strong environmental credentials and encouraging our existing suppliers to improve their environmental performance.

Our key performance measures are energy use, carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), water use, waste to landfill and recycling. We also focus on minimising our impacts on biodiversity.

2012 highlights

• 100% scored in the Environmental Policy / Management System category of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
• Developed new five-year targets for CO2e, energy and water use, as well as year-on-year targets for waste.
• 41% reduction in CO2e emissions in 2012 (against our 2000 baseline).
• 13% reduction in energy use in 2012 (against our 2007 baseline).
• 22% reduction in water use in 2012 (against our 2007 baseline).
• £40.4 million Group Environment, Occupational Health and Safety expenditure in 2012.
• Rolled out an updated version of our biodiversity risk and opportunity assessment tool to all our leaf growing operations, who will complete the next round of assessments by the end of 2014.
• Made our biodiversity risk and opportunity assessment tool freely available at www.batbiodiversity.org  and want to encourage its use by other tobacco and agricultural businesses.
• Fifth highest score out of 127 European companies for addressing biodiversity impacts in a new report by European Ratings agency, Vigeo.

The data on this page has been reviewed by Ernst & Young LLP. For more details see their Assurance Statement.
March 2013

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