British American Tobacco (BAT) has unveiled ambitious new environmental targets in its 2020 environmental, social and governance (ESG) report.
In 2020, BAT announced its ambition to be carbon neutral for emissions resulting from its own business activities by 2030. The most recent commitment also aims to cut emissions across its value chain. This builds on BAT’s existing efforts to engage with suppliers on climate change and to support contracted farmers in adopting less carbon-intensive farming techniques.
Having achieved its water recycling target ahead of time, BAT also announced it will set the bar higher to increase the amount of water recycled to 30 percent by 2025. By 2025, BAT also aims to have 100 percent of all manufacturing sites certified by the Alliance for Water Stewardship.
In March 2020, BAT announced stretching new ESG targets as part of its evolved strategy to deliver “A Better Tomorrow.” The latest ESG report highlights BAT’s progress, including: increasing consumers of noncombustible products by 3 million to 13.5 million at year end 2020; increasing new categories revenue by 15 percent in 2020 versus 2019; increasing renewable energy to 26 percent—a 10 percent increase from last year and a greater than 30 percent reduction in overall carbon emissions since 2019; reducing water withdrawn by nearly 11 percent since 2019; holding more than 38,000 human rights training sessions, with more than 390,000 attendances across its supply chain; and reaching 38 percent of female representation in management roles.
We continue to drive for excellence across all areas of ESG, and we’re proud to announce our new commitment of expanding our carbon neutrality target to include Scope 3 emissions by 2050.
“This report gives a transparent account of our progress and our heightened ambition,” said BAT CEO Jack Bowles, in a statement. “We continue to drive for excellence across all areas of ESG, and we’re proud to announce our new commitment of expanding our carbon neutrality target to include Scope 3 emissions by 2050.”