BAT celebrates inclusion in two leading global sustainability rankings

BAT received an ‘A’ rating in CDP’s climate change assessment, one of over 18,700 companies that took part this year. This puts BAT in CDP’s top 2% of companies scored. These assessments rate companies’ approach, disclosure and performance on key environmental issues, including transparent reporting, setting ambitious targets and delivering sustained results. Addressing climate change is one of BAT’s top priorities, and the company published its Low-Carbon Transition Plan earlier this year, setting out an ambitious roadmap for how it will reach Net Zero targets.

BAT is also included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) for the 21st consecutive year, highlighting its long-standing commitment to ESG. The company achieved a score of 100% in six areas - environmental reporting, human capital development, operational eco-efficiency, supply chain management, social reporting and materiality^. BAT is the only company in its industry to also be included in the DJSI World Index. Less than 3% of all companies assessed by S&P Global made it into the 2022 DJSI World Index.

BAT is consistently recognised for high performance in sustainability including:

BAT’s most recent sustainability reports can be found at the following links:

^Materiality is the process of identifying sources of long-term value creation by assessing the impact of key sustainability issues on business performance and then communicating to stakeholders.
1. Inclusion in the DJSI is based on the S&P Global ESG Score. BAT received an ESG score of 88/100, score date: 9 December 2022. As well as achieving an overall score higher than the industry average, BAT is the highest scoring company in its industry in 2022. The company achieved industry-leading scores in 13 of 24 categories assessed across environmental, social and governance dimensions. An in-depth look at BAT’s performance in the 2022 DJSI is available here.
* Based on the weight of evidence and assuming a complete switch from cigarette smoking. These products are not risk free and are addictive.
† Our products as sold in the US, including Vuse, Velo, Grizzly, Kodiak, and Camel Snus, are subject to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation and no reduced-risk claims will be made as to these products without FDA clearance.

BAT is a leading, multi-category consumer goods business with a purpose to build A Better Tomorrow™ by reducing the health impact of its business through offering a greater choice of enjoyable and less risky products for adult consumers.

The company continues to be clear that combustible cigarettes pose serious health risks, and the only way to avoid these risks is not to start or to quit. BAT encourages those who would otherwise continue to smoke to switch completely to scientifically-substantiated, reduced-risk alternatives*†. In order to deliver this, BAT is transforming into a truly consumer-centric multi-category consumer products business.

BAT’s ambition is to have 50 million consumers of its non-combustible products by 2030 and to generate £5 billion of New Categories revenue by 2025. BAT has set stretching ESG targets including achieving a 50% reduction in Scope 1, 2 & 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, versus a 2020 baseline; and, making all plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.

BAT employs over 52,000 people and operates in over 175 countries. The BAT Group generated revenue of £12.87 billion in the first half of 2022 and profit from operations of £3.68 billion.

The company’s Strategic Portfolio is made up of its global cigarette brands and a growing range of reduced-risk*† New Category tobacco and nicotine products and traditional non-combustible tobacco products. These include vapour, tobacco heating products, modern oral products including tobacco-free nicotine pouches, as well as traditional oral products such as snus and moist snuff. In the first half of 2022, we had 20.4 million consumers of our non-combustible products, a rise of 2.1 million on full year 2021.

* Based on the weight of evidence and assuming a complete switch from cigarette smoking. These products are not risk free and are addictive.
† Our products as sold in the US, including Vuse, Velo, Grizzly, Kodiak, and Camel Snus, are subject to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation and no reduced-risk claims will be made as to these products without FDA clearance.

The Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) are a family of Indices operated by S&P, evaluating the sustainability performance of thousands of publicly listed companies. Companies are selected for inclusion in the DJSI based on the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) ESG score. This is an annual evaluation of companies’ sustainability practices for which over 13,000 publicly traded companies are invited to participate.

The CSA uses a consistent, rule-based methodology to convert an average of 600 data points per company into an S&P ESG Score. The 61 industry-specific questionnaires each contain approximately 80–100 questions covering 24 different key themes across the economic, social and environmental dimension.

The 2022 assessment once again raised the bar in identifying those companies best positioned to address future sustainability challenges and opportunities. This year, due to the increased number of respondents and changes to methodology, S&P decoupled the announcement of the underlying ESG score and the DJSI membership announcement.

CDP’s annual environmental disclosure and scoring process is widely recognized as the gold standard of corporate environmental transparency. In 2022, over 680 investors with over US$130 trillion in assets and 280+ major purchasers with US$6.4 trillion in procurement spend requested companies to disclose data on environmental impacts, risks and opportunities through CDP’s platform.

A detailed and independent methodology is used by CDP to assess companies, allocating a score of A to D- based on the comprehensiveness of disclosure, awareness and management of environmental risks and demonstration of best practices associated with environmental leadership, such as setting ambitious and meaningful targets. Those that don’t disclose or provided insufficient information are marked with an F.

Click here to see the list of companies on this year’s CDP A-List.

This release contains certain forward-looking statements, including "forward-looking" statements made within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as "believe," "anticipate," "could," "may," "would," "should," "intend," "plan," "potential," "predict," "will," "expect," "estimate," "project," "positioned," "strategy," "outlook", "target" and similar expressions. These include statements regarding our customer target ambition, New Categories revenue targets and our ESG targets.

All such forward-looking statements involve estimates and assumptions that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors. It is believed that the expectations reflected in this release are reasonable but they may be affected by a wide range of variables that could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated. A review of the reasons why actual results and developments may differ materially from the expectations disclosed or implied within forward-looking statements can be found by referring to the information contained under the headings “Cautionary Statement” and "Group Principal Risks " in the 2021 Annual Report and Form 20-F of British American Tobacco p.l.c. (BAT).

Additional information concerning these and other factors can be found in BAT's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including the Annual Report on Form 20-F and Current Reports on Form 6-K, which may be obtained free of charge at the SEC's website, https://www.sec.gov and BAT’s Annual Reports, which may be obtained free of charge from the BAT website www.bat.com.

Past performance is no guide to future performance and persons needing advice should consult an independent financial adviser. The forward-looking statements reflect knowledge and information available at the date of preparation of this release and BAT undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.