BAT, a leading, multi-category consumer goods business, has announced it is committing to reaching carbon neutrality across its value chain by 2050. This ambition is highlighted in BAT’s dedicated ESG report, which demonstrates significant progress towards its goals.
This new commitment aims to cut emissions across its value chain (Scope 3), building on BAT’s existing efforts to engage with suppliers on climate change and to support contracted farmers in adopting less carbon-intensive farming techniques. In 2020, BAT announced its ambition to be carbon neutral for emissions resulting from its own business activities (Scope 1 & 2) by 2030.
Jack Bowles, BAT’s Chief Executive, said “We are at a pivotal moment in our transformation and are committed to building the enterprise of the future. This report gives a transparent account of our progress and our heightened ambition. 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.”
New targets are key drivers towards achieving A Better Tomorrow™ for all stakeholders, including:
• Carbon neutrality across value chain by 2050
• 100% renewable electricity by 2030
• 100% of all manufacturing sites certified by the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) by 2025
• 100% of all manufacturing sites to have zero waste to landfill by 2025
Having achieved its water recycling target ahead of time, BAT has also announced it will set the bar higher, to increase the amount of water recycled to 30% by 2025. By 2025, BAT also aims to have 100% of all manufacturing sites certified by the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS). This respected independent audit certification will help validate BAT’s water stewardship.
In March 2020, it announced stretching new ESG targets as part of its evolved strategy to deliver A Better Tomorrow™. The latest ESG report demonstrates that BAT has delivered significant progress since then, including:
• Increasing consumers of non-combustible products by 3 million to 13.5 million at year end 2020
• Increasing New Categories revenue by 15% in 2020 versus 2019
• Increasing renewable energy to 26% – a 10% increase from last year, and a greater than 30% reduction in overall carbon emissions since 2019
• Reducing water withdrawn by nearly 11% since 2019
• Holding more than 38,000 human rights training sessions, with more than 390,000 attendances across its supply chain, and
• Reaching 38% of female representation in management roles.
The company has also announced a target of increasing the number of its non-combustible product consumers to 50 million by 2030; and to achieve at least £5 billion in New Categories revenues in 2025.
