Review Sustainability Report 2008 of British American Tobacco
Review Sustainability Report 2008
British American Tobacco
Table of Content
Part I: Review Program of Biodiversity Partnership (Environment)
Part II: Review Overall Report
Part III: Business Ethics Principles
Sources / References
Part I: Review Program of Biodiversity Partnership (Environment)
BATs sustainability agenda comprises five key goals that cover all areas which is an integral part of delivering this strategy: harm reduction, marketplace, supply chain, environment, people and culture. In this review, I focus my review on the environmental program, specifically on how BAT (the Group) deals with biodiversity. Being dependent on the natural world for our raw materials gives BAT a responsibility to avoid and minimize business impacts on biodiversity. Its primary biodiversity focus is the maintenance of ecosystems where tobacco leaf is grown, to ensure healthy soils, timber and water sustainability. This program has been undertaken under “The British American Tobacco Biodiversity Partnership”. In general, this program was divided into three concentrations as following:
Developing training on biodiversity for its leaf managers;
Developing measures for managing and reporting on its biodiversity impacts; and
Developing a global risk map through the Biodiversity Partnership to help in the planning and execution of its biodiversity risk assessments.
My analysis below discusses the biodiversity program as described in the Sustainability Report 2008 of BAT (page 30 – 35) and the detailed program information that can be found in the website www.bat.com and www.batbiodiversity.org. The analysis is based on the following relevant basic principles:
Interdependence and Relationship
As stated in the Partnerships vision, governance and objectives (the website www.bat.com), the programs mission is to leverage, as a partnership, resources and expertise to achieve more and better conservation of the natural resources on which the Group depends, including embedding sustainable biodiversity conservation into British American Tobaccos operations. Accordingly, the program was involved several parties either directly or indirectly such as, among others, the Groups management and employees,