british american tobacco p.l.c. sustainability report 2010 - Environment

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

We made good progress in reducing our environmental impacts. We also held a stakeholder dialogue session to develop our approach to water management. We continued to work with three NGOs in our Biodiversity Partnership and agreed its scope of work for the next five years. All our leaf growing operations completed biodiversity risk and opportunity assessments and have corrective action plans in place.

The manufacture, distribution, consumption and disposal of our products all impact on the environment.

As a business with an agricultural supply chain, we depend heavily on natural resources and ecosystems. We therefore recognise the need for a clear, strategic approach to managing our environmental footprint. It not only makes good economic and environmental sense for us to use raw materials, energy and water efficiently, it is our responsibility.

Our key environmental impacts are linked to energy consumption and our wider contribution to climate change, water use and managing waste. We also endeavour to minimise any negative impacts on biodiversity.

Our comprehensive Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) management system has been in place for many years and is based on international standards, including ISO 14001. We also have an internal reporting system that enables us to monitor Group-wide performance on our key environmental measures. We have been evolving our approach to EHS to create greater global consistency and ensure we have the tools and processes in place to help address increasing global environmental challenges.

Each of our business units has an EHS Steering Committee with overall environmental responsibility held by the General Manager or site manager. EHS is also a standing agenda item for review bodies at area, regional and global levels. This has increased our understanding of the EHS risks associated with our business.

Our Group Operations Director has overall responsibility for environmental management, while responsibility for our EHS Policy lies with the Management Board.

The policy sets out requirements for all our companies and applies to both our own activities and how we manage our supply chain. Environmental management is also a key element of our integrated supply chain sustainability strategy, which you can read about in the supply chain section.