uk bat.com - Environmental management

For our companies, good environmental practice is good business practice

Almost everything we handle – tobacco, paper, board – is grown in the natural environment, so it makes good economic and environmental sense for us to ensure that our use of raw materials is fully sustainable.

We believe that good environmental practice is good business practice; that businesses can enhance efficiency through environmentally sound technologies, optimising products and processes and conserving energy and natural resources.  We seek to control and reduce our impacts via the ‘3 Rs’ principle: Reduce, Recover, Recycle.

We report annually on our performance, including targets and longer term trends.  See Group environmental performance.

Our programmes

Our programmes cover energy conservation; water, air and soil protection; afforestation; minimising waste and minimising the use of natural resources, agrochemicals and raw materials.  Key aspects are reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and managing our impacts on biodiversity.

Energy:  We have for many years monitored and controlled our companies’ energy use, so that most energy intensive machinery and work equipment has been replaced.  While this has improved energy conservation, it makes further reductions more challenging.  We also measure the energy impact of our supply chain and business travel.

Carbon dioxide:  The 1997 Kyoto Protocol commits governments to greenhouse gas reductions of 5.2 per cent (from 1990 volumes) by 2008-2012, with different targets for countries depending on their output.  In line with Kyoto, in 2000 we established a reduction target for Group CO2 emissions of 5.2 per cent by 2008.  We achieved this four years early, with a 9 per cent reduction by end 2004, and achieved a further, lower 2008 target by end 2005.  We continue to work to manage and limit our CO2 emissions.  We also estimate and report CO2 emissions from the curing of leaf that we buy from growers.  Through our agronomy support to growers, these emissions, per tonne of leaf, have steadily reduced.

Biodiversity:  Our approach to understanding and managing our biodiversity impacts takes account of the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and Target 9 of the Millennium Development Goals.  Our EHS policy requires our companies to make risk assessments to identify biodiversity impacts within their sphere of influence, such as on protected or sensitive areas, IUCN Red List species or on the diversity of life and natural systems, and to develop plans to reduce any impacts.

The three partner NGOs in the British American Tobacco Biodiversity Partnership are working with us to further integrate biodiversity conservation across our operations and key supply chain programmes.

Water:  Areas where we operate include arid and developing countries where water may be a scarce resource. We seek to control our water consumption and reduce it across the Group. We also aim to minimise the environmental impact of our water discharges.

Waste:  We encourage our companies to reduce, reuse and recycle waste in that order of priority.  They are required to monitor waste, implement minimisation programmes, segregate waste and dispose of each component appropriately, set reduction targets and choose recycling wherever possible over landfill disposal.  We insist that factory waste is only removed by registered waste carriers, to be disposed of in approved facilities.  We insist that contractors apply the same standards as our own and our companies work with contractors and authorities to improve standards in areas where they are not yet defined.

Benchmarking

To support continuous improvement and alignment with international best practice, our policies and practices are benchmarked annually in external assessments for the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and the UK Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index and by EIRIS (Ethical Investment Research Services).  We consistently score highly in environmental categories, including leadership positions in our industry sector.

In the most recent Business in the Community assessment, for 2007, we earned an overall score of 99 per cent in the Business in the Environment Index, placing us in the highest possible Platinum performance band. Once again, we lead our sector, with 100 per cent ratings in most categories, including environmental management, biodiversity, waste and resource management, objectives, targets, audit and communication with stakeholders.