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BAT celebrates inclusion in two leading global sustainability rankings

NEWS RELEASE

15 DECEMBER 2022

BAT celebrates inclusion in two leading global sustainability rankings

  • BAT achieves recognition by CDP and DJSI, widely acknowledged as gold standard for corporate sustainability
  • BAT receives ‘A’ rating from CDP in climate change
  • DJSI ranks BAT as highest scoring company in its industry
  • BAT is the only company in its industry to be included in the DJSI World Index
  • Rankings highlight BAT's commitment to building A Better Tomorrow™, by reducing the health impact of its business and putting sustainability front and centre.


BAT’s sustainability leadership has been recognised by two leading global sustainability rankings, CDP and DJSI.

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 areas1 - 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.

Mike Nightingale, Chief Sustainability Officer at BAT, said:

“We’re delighted that our continued efforts to put sustainability front and centre of all we do have been recognised by CDP and DJSI. This achievement is the result of significant efforts being made by BAT colleagues and suppliers around the world to continuously drive sustainability improvements in every aspect of our business, from energy use to packaging design.

“We are proud of our sustainability record as we work to build A Better Tomorrow. We continue to deliver against our ambitious targets to reduce our environmental and social impacts as well as reducing the health impact of our business.”

BAT is consistently recognised for high performance in sustainability including:

  • Named as a 2022 Climate Leader by the Financial Times for successfully lowering its emissions intensity over a sustained period.
  • Awarded the highest Gold class in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook 2022.
  • Alliance for Water Stewardship certification achieved at our largest US manufacturing facility

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.

About the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices

 

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.

About CDP

 

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.

Enquiries

 

Media Centre
+44 (0) 20 7845 2888 (24 hours)  | @BATplc 

Investor Relations
Victoria Buxton: +44 (0)20 7845 2012
John Harney: +44 (0)20 7845 1263

 

Forward-looking statements

 

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, http://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.