British American Tobacco - We are BAT

We are a leading FTSE company with truly international credentials. Spread across six continents, our regions are the United States of America; Americas & Europe (AME) and ) and Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (APMEA).

There are more than 50,000 BAT people worldwide. Although we have had to adapt how and where we work from since the start of 2020, many of us are based in offices, factories, tech hubs and R&D centres, but lots of us also spend our time out on the road, helping and advising tobacco farmers, and the retailers who sell our products; both valued partners who have always played a major part in our success.

Our heritage – and the foundation of our success – is in cigarettes.

However, we recognise the world is changing. We now have a clear purpose to build A Better Tomorrow™ by reducing the health impact of our business.

Our business is on a transformation journey. We see new opportunities to capture consumer moments which have, over time, become limited by societal and regulatory shifts, and to satisfy evolving consumer needs and preferences.

We have evolved our strategy to put a sharper focus on our New Categories of products, fuelled by investment from the continued delivery of our traditional tobacco business.

Our strategy is about anticipating and satisfying the ever-evolving consumer: providing pleasure, reducing risk, offering an increasing choice and stimulating the senses of adult consumers worldwide.

Our clear purpose to build A Better Tomorrow™ by reducing the health impact of our business entails:

• Committing to providing adult consumers with a wide range of enjoyable and less risky products
• Continuing to be clear that combustible cigarettes pose serious health risks, and the only way to avoid these risks is not to start or to quit
• Encouraging those who otherwise continue to smoke, to switch completely to scientifically-substantiated, reduced-risk alternatives* †
• Tracking and sharing progress of our transformation

We’ve been on this journey for several years. We set an ambition to satisfy consumer moments in tobacco and beyond back in 2012 and launched our first vapour product not long after.

Since then, we have invested significant sums in research and development of New Categories of reduced-risk*† products (almost £350m every year), including vapour, tobacco heating and modern oral products.

We have become a multi-category tobacco and nicotine products business with our New Categories embedded into the heart of our company, alongside our cigarette operations.

And our clear purpose is to build A Better Tomorrow™ by reducing the health impact of our business.

This entails:

• Committing to providing adult consumers with a wide range of enjoyable and less risky products
• Continuing to be clear that combustible cigarettes pose serious health risks, and the only way to avoid these risks is not to start or to quit
• Encouraging those who otherwise continue to smoke, to switch completely to scientifically-substantiated, reduced-risk alternatives
• Tracking and sharing progress of our transformation.

To realise their true potential, we also need to make these products available to adult smokers in as many markets as possible, and we are now rolling them out to countries worldwide. By the end of 2021, BAT’s New Category products are now available in more than 60 markets.

As a result, we are moving from a business where sustainability has always been important, to one where it is front and centre in all that we do.

In today’s complex and challenging world, the policies, principles and programmes that guide how we work are more important than ever.

Just as we are committed to making a step change in our New Categories performance, we are also committed to making a step change in our sustainability ambition.

Supporting our ambition to build A Better Tomorrow™, we have announced a number of stretching targets that we are confident will accelerate our transformation which will benefit all our stakeholders and society, including:

• increasing our consumers of non-combustible products to 50 million by 2030
• achieving carbon neutrality for our own business activities by 2030 and our value chain by 2050
• Making all packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025
• Increasing our renewable energy use to reach 50% by 2030.

In today’s complex and challenging world, the policies, principles and programmes that guide how we work are more important than ever.

With operations and supply chains in many diverse and demanding environments around the world, protecting human rights is particularly important for us.

We work with c81,000 farmers contracted through BAT leaf operations worldwide and invest millions of pounds each year in leaf R&D. This helps us to develop new and innovative farming technologies and techniques, as well as safer, more efficient ways of working.

And our network of field technicians regularly visit farms to advise and train farmers, helping them grow tobacco and other crops, sustainably and successfully.

Of course, a global agricultural supply chain can be vulnerable to human rights issues such as child labour and understanding these challenges – and finding solutions – is central to our role.

Through our involvement with the industry-wide Sustainable Tobacco Programme, we review all our tobacco leaf suppliers. This is an important way of ensuring high standards are maintained and helps drive continuous improvements.

You’d also be joining a company with a clear ethos that underpins a future-fit culture that will allow us to deliver our vision. Our ethos is about being bold, fast, empowered, responsible and diverse.

The quality of our people is key to our continuing success, so attracting and developing talented people is a top priority.

Our focus is on building and inspiring diverse teams and on investing in skills and creating a working culture where passionate and driven people can thrive and reap the rewards of a fulfilling career.

Few other companies are as diverse as BAT. We employ people of 138 different nationalities, from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, in management roles across the Group. Our target is to achieve at least a 50% spread of distinct nationalities in all our regional and functional leadership teams to better mirror our consumer base. In 2022, this was achieved in all key Regional/Functional leadership teams.

We value this kind of diversity because it encourages innovation, creativity and different ways of thinking; it creates a fascinating place to work, with opportunities to collaborate with a wide range of people from various countries, cultures and with different perspectives.

We’re big on career progression for women and we’re proud to have strong female representation in our senior management teams. This progress has been driven by initiatives such as our Women in Leadership programme, while around half of our graduate intake each year is female.