Social Report 2006/2007

I am delighted to present British American Tobacco's first EU Social Report. It summarises the debate and feedback received in dialogue sessions involving a wide range of stakeholders in the EU institutions and EU member state governments as well as stakeholders from trade unions, business groups and the scientific community.

The report gives a detailed account of participants' expectations and of our company's reactions and responses. Most importantly, it details what actions British American Tobacco has committed to take in the next 12 months to respond to expectations.

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The Social Reporting Process

Social Reporting is part of British American Tobacco's serious commitment to embedding the principles of corporate social responsibility throughout the  Group. Dialogue and stakeholder engagement are at the heart of this. the principal purpose of the 2006 Social Reporting process at an EU level is to have stakeholders critically review British American Tobacco's perspective and efforts in managing the major societal and business dilemmas involved with manufacturing and marketing tobacco products. Stakeholders are invited to contribute their views, concerns and expectations of the company on these issues. They are also invited to discuss and identify what they would like to see reviewed, reported and monitored through appropriate performance indicators.

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Our Facilitator

Independent moderation and facilitation of the EU Social Reporting sessions will be done by Mr. Pavel Telička - former Commissioner responsible for Health and Consumer Protection issues. the dialogue sessions will involve participants representing a broad spectrum of interests from the 260 EU stakeholders invited by British American Tobacco.
Senior managers from British American Tobacco Europe Region will also be present. Their role will not be to advocate the company's view but rather to listen and understand stakeholders' views and to try to provide participants with an insight into the company's current approach and the rationale that underpins it.

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Standards

The Social Reporting dialogue phase is independently run and facilitated, and the whole process is assured/verified by external audit in accordance with the AA1000AS standard.

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Issues

Following best practice trends in sustainability reporting, this first EU cycle of Social Reporting will focus on the major issues surrounding tobacco products and their impact on health. Independent research conducted at the beginning of 2006 confirmed that issues relating to harm reduction and combatting the illicit trade of tobacco products are of significant importance to our EU stakeholders.

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Stakeholders

British American Tobacco is willing and keen to address these issues and the resulting social dilemmas in a way that reflects understanding and consideration of stakeholders' perspectives and concerns. British American Tobacco believes this approach of "understand, decide, deliver" is fundamentally different from the "decide, announce, defend" model, where companies undertake certain CSR related activities irrespective of its stakeholders' opinions and expectations.

British American Tobacco believes that constructive dialogue with stakeholders will help the company in to better understand the difficult issues around tobacco. It is also convinced that by considering these issues from a variety of different perspectives, the positions and decisions arrived at will be more robust, and the solutions proposed and implemented more sustainable and likely to succeed.

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Stakeholder Dialogue 2006

Between September 2006 and January 2007, British American Tobacco conducted a round of stakeholder dialogues and depth interviews to examine stakeholder expectations of the company at the European Union level, building on previous work done at the national and global levels to feed into the company's non-financial reporting. Each dialogue session focused on a different issue in order to encourage in-depth discussion of each topic and the central dilemmas facing society and tobacco companies like British American Tobacco. The key topics/areas were identified and confirmed through initial stakeholder research.

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Commitments Fulfilment

British American Tobacco organised several dialogue sessions at the European Union level in 2006 and 2007, within the framework of its social reporting process. These sessions were intended to help us understand the expectations of different stakeholders in areas such as smoking in public places, harm reduction and combating illicit trade. In our Social Report, published in 2007, we outlined our responses to those expectations and committed to a range of actions including reporting on progress.

We have published detailed information on actions taken to follow up on our commitments in the Commitment Fulfilment section on this website.

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Stakeholder Dialogue 2010

In March 2010, British American Tobacco organised an independently facilitated stakeholder dialogue session with the objective of sharing with different stakeholders what actions had been taken to follow up on the commitments and listening to stakeholders' feedback, views and further expectations.

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