sustainability report 2008 - Environment

Our 2009 goals

We will actively address the impacts of our business on the natural environment.

• We will aim to reduce our energy use by 6.7 per cent to 11.03 gigajoules per million cigarettes equivalent by 2012 from our 2007 baseline of 11.82 gigajoules per million cigarettes equivalent;*
• We will aim to reduce our water use by 13.4 per cent to 4.2 cubic metres per million cigarettes equivalent by 2012 from our 2007 baseline of 4.85 cubic metres per million cigarettes equivalent;
• We will use Life Cycle Analysis to develop a greater understanding of water use in our extended supply chain;
• We will aim to reduce our waste to landfill by 12 per cent to 0.022 tonnes per million cigarettes equivalent by 2012 from our 2007 baseline of 0.025 tonnes per million cigarettes equivalent and to achieve recycling rates greater than 75 per cent of waste generated in each year to 2012;
• We will aim to reduce our CO2 equivalent by 50 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050 from our year 2000 baseline of 1.38 tonnes per million cigarettes equivalent;*
• We will develop and implement a pilot programme by end 2009 to encourage employees to reduce their own carbon footprint at home and at work thereby fostering greater ownership of environmental impacts;
• We will pilot our full-site energy assessment approach by end 2009;
• We will develop a plan by end 2009 for improving energy efficiency in our vehicle fleets used by our Trade Marketing and Distribution function;
• We will focus on putting systems in place to gather information on our two key biodiversity measures – wood for tobacco curing and risk assessments – and to track local biodiversity indicators resulting from risk assessments by end 2009;
• We will carry out Biodiversity Risk Assessments in all the markets where we grow leaf by end 2010;
• To further embed awareness of biodiversity issues, we will launch a training programme aimed at our leaf managers and a learning module for all employees during 2009;
• We will develop and trial replicable models of forest regeneration and native forest management by end 2010; and
• We will investigate the use of alternative fuels and how to increase furnace efficiency to help us in our aim of farmers using less than 3 per cent of wood fuel from natural forests by end 2015.

*In 2008, factors for calculating transport energy were updated in line with evolving best practice. To track performance consistently, previous figures and targets for energy and CO2 are rebased using the updated factors.