sustainability report 2008 - An employee’s perspective
Group Head of Logistics and Service London, UK
The environmental impact of industry is something I have been aware of and addressing as part of my role for many years, and the sustainability agenda has helped to provide more business focus to the issues. To me, sustainability is not just about a ‘tick in the box’ but about incorporating it into our business and making it work at ground level.
Having an effective and efficient logistics network is a way of addressing our environmental impacts that is also commercially advantageous. My focus is to integrate sustainability into decision making at a strategic and an executional level and to challenge the status quo.
Our global supply chain cooperation with DHL Exel is a first for British American Tobacco. DHL Exel is a key provider of logistics services to support our supply chain, so it makes sense for us to further develop our working relationships around the world.
We both have sustainability at the very top of our agendas and, by working together, we should be able to realise sustainability initiatives in our respective businesses in a quicker, cheaper and more focused way. Building a cooperation framework will help us to better identify common areas of environmental impacts and the innovations we might be able to introduce to address these.
This closer and stronger working relationship is already delivering positive results, but the real challenge is in realising tangible benefits that we wouldn’t otherwise have had if we weren’t working together in this way. I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops and the innovations it could lead us to.