Shareholders attending British American Tobacco's AGM in London on Thursday (28th April) will be asked whether they can trust the company, following the publication of a new report highlighting how the world's second largest tobacco company hides the damage it causes to health, development and the environment behind a mask of "corporate social responsibility".
The report, "BAT in its Own Words", published by Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) uses internal BAT memos, emails and letters to question whether shareholders should trust what the company says.
The report shows how, behind the façade of social and environmental responsibility:
- top BAT executives fought to block the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). BAT used support for AIDS prevention in Africa to try to win political influence and "relegate" tobacco as a health issue.
- BAT campaigned to try to discredit research from the World Health Organisation (WHO). It used scientific evidence from research supported by the tobacco industry to undermine WHO research into nicotine addiction and the health impacts of secondhand smoke.
- BAT tried to use codes of conduct, self-regulatory bodies, public reporting and coordinated corporate giving programmes as tactics to pre-empt higher taxes, tobacco advertising bans and restrictions on smoking in public places.
- Key examples of quotes from BAT internal documents are given in Note 4 of this release
BAT makes profits of more than £2.7 billion a year from a 15 per cent share of the world tobacco market. As about 5 million people die from tobacco-related diseases every year, BAT's 300 brands of cigarettes sold in 180 countries could be causing up to three-quarters of a million premature deaths. The BAT Director responsible for the companies' policy on corporate social responsibility is Ken Clarke MP, former Tory Health Secretary.
Friends of the Earth, ASH, and Christian Aid said the report shows why companies - especially those operating in industries producing hazardous products - should not be left to regulate themselves. The organisations are calling on the UK Government to reform company law so that all UK-based companies are accountable for their social and environmental impacts wherever in the world they operate [3] and to back new international standards to govern corporate behaviour.
Friends of the Earth Director Tony Juniper said: