bat sustainability report 2007 - About this report

This is the British American Tobacco p.l.c. Sustainability Report 2007. It reports on activities of British American Tobacco Group companies in the UK and internationally. References to ‘British American Tobacco’, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ when denoting opinion refer to British American Tobacco p.l.c. and when denoting tobacco business activity refer to Group operating companies, collectively or individually as the case may be.

This Report contains forward-looking statements which are subject to risk factors associated with, among other things, the economic and business circumstances occurring from time to time in the countries and markets in which the Group operates.

It is believed that the expectations reflected in these statements are reasonable, but they may be affected by a wide range of variables which cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated.

Ernst & Young LLP has been engaged by British American Tobacco to provide external assurance over this Report. Ernst & Young LLP reviewed all commitments and statements of progress, data, GRI information, text and, specifically, performance-related information for the period 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2007.

A message from Ernst & Young LLP

We have reviewed the contents of the British American Tobacco p.l.c. Sustainability Report 2007 to provide assurance on the information reported. To form our conclusions we undertook the following steps:

  1. Interviewed a selection of British American Tobacco executives and senior managers;
     
  2. Conducted a benchmarking exercise of material issues within the tobacco sector;
     
  3. Reviewed a selection of media reports and company documents to test the coverage of topics in the Report;
     
  4. Reviewed the data and assertions made in the Report;
     
  5. Reviewed and challenged the data collation process;
     
  6. Reviewed the internal process for determining material issues; and
     
  7. Attended stakeholder dialogue sessions.

Our conclusions, which can be found in our Assurance Statement have been prepared against the main principles of the AA1000 Assurance Standard: Materiality, Completeness and Responsiveness. Several of our specific observations have also been included within the body of the Report.

© 2008 British American Tobacco