uk bat.com - Sustainability reporting

We began international social reporting in 2001-02 to help us embed the principles of corporate social responsibility (CSR) throughout the Group. In April 2010 we published the third Sustainability Report for British American Tobacco p.l.c.

Our approach to reporting

The production of Social Reports by many of our local companies has been a key element in our approach to sustainability over the past 10 years. To date, our businesses in more than 40 markets have produced Social Reports and stakeholder dialogue is a key business practice for our companies around the world. However, as our reporting has evolved and there has been greater alignment throughout the Group, this approach is no longer the most appropriate. We have therefore decided to produce one Sustainability Report for the Group.

Not producing local reports will free up time and resources to concentrate on implementing sustainability initiatives. Performance will continue to be monitored and reported through our audit and CSR committees while dialogue, transparency and accountability will remain central to our approach. Our local companies will continue to help shape their local sustainability plans and initiatives.

About the reporting process

Our reporting process allows us to meet greater demands for corporate transparency and to continue improving our management decision-making through understanding changing expectations in society.

Our rigorous approach to the reporting process involves:

• Governance: Group CSR performance is monitored through a Board CSR Committee and local and regional audit and CSR governance committees;
• Sustainability reporting: Our companies around the world engage in dialogue and British American Tobacco p.l.c. produces an annual Sustainability Report for the Group;
• Standards: We follow the AA1000 Standard and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines;
• Assurance: Rigorous external verification is applied to our Report;
• Dialogue: Our reporting is based on independently-facilitated stakeholder dialogue.

Our Sustainability Report is independently verified and based on independently facilitated stakeholder dialogue. The report follows the AA1000 Standard and GRI Guidelines.

In our Reporting download centre, you can access previous Social and Sustainability Reports. There is also a list of all our companies’ previous reports, many of which can be viewed online or downloaded as PDF files.

Group CSR governance

All our companies are required to demonstrate clearly defined management responsibility for CSR. Group CSR performance is monitored through a Board CSR Committee chaired by Non-Executive Director, Karen de Segundo, and at regional, area and local levels through combined audit and CSR committees. The structure aims to support the embedding of CSR principles Group-wide by monitoring the Group’s performance against the Core Beliefs in our Statement of Business Principles. 
  
For more information, see Group CSR governance.

Independent standards and assurance

The AA1000 Standard was established by the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability, known as AccountAbility, a non-profit institute working to promote accountability innovations that advance responsible business practices and the broader accountability of civil society and public organisations.  Its members include businesses, NGOs and research bodies internationally.  The AA1000 Standard, followed by all our companies in social reporting, encourages transparency and impartiality in reporting through nine key principles.

Ernst & Young are our preferred assurance provider for sustainability reporting. Ernst & Young’s independent assurance activities on our Sustainability Report 2009 are described in their assurance statement in the Report. Their sustainability assurance team for British American Tobacco has been drawn from their global climate change and sustainability services network, which undertakes similar engagements with a number of significant UK and international businesses.

GRI Guidelines:  The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was convened in 1997 by the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme, to produce globally applicable guidelines for organisations reporting on the economic, environmental and social dimensions of their activities.  The GRI Guidelines are followed by about 1,000 reporters in over 60 countries.  To promote comparability between organisations, they offer a reporting framework, recommended topics and GRI indicators of economic, environmental and social performance which we and many other organisations follow.

Dialogue

All our participating companies develop dialogue structures to enable them to respond to their cultural, economic and political environments and local stakeholders’ interests.  Independent local facilitators run these dialogues and produce independently verified dialogue reports.  Examples of local facilitators include ethics and facilitation consultancies, well-known public figures in the media, politics or academia, former diplomats, human resources specialists and negotiation experts.

In 2009, our companies continued to engage with their stakeholders to help shape the sustainability agenda in their markets, building on our programme of formal stakeholder dialogue which began in 2001. In 2009, independently facilitated and assured dialogue was carried out in line with Group guidance by our companies.

For a summary of dialogues our companies carried out in 2009, see our stakeholder dialogue around the Group:

- Download stakeholder dialogue around the Group (36 kb)

See our past International Issues Map for issues raised in dialogue and find out what we have learned from dialogue so far.

- Download our past International Issues Map (537 kb)