“Our purpose of building A Better Tomorrow ensures that sustainability is front and centre in all we do. We are proud, therefore, to support the Race to Zero campaign. This is in addition to our New Categories journey – with Vuse, glo and Velo – and our ambition to have £5bn of New Category revenue by 2025 and 50mn non-combustible product users by 2030”, said Kingsley Wheaton, Chief Marketing Officer at BAT.
In 2020 alone, BAT achieved a 30.9% reduction in emissions from its operations, contributing to a 37.4% reduction against a 2017 baseline. In May 2021 BAT announced that Vuse has become the first global carbon neutral vape brand.
BAT was named as a 2021 Climate Leader by the Financial Times, a European ranking that recognises the top 300 of more than 4,000 companies that have achieved the highest reduction in core greenhouse gas emissions in relation to revenues for the period between 2014 and 2019.
The Race to Zero campaign aims to limit the rise in average global temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, which requires major and widespread action, with companies having an important role to play. BAT is therefore realigning its existing sustainability targets with this trajectory and committing to net-zero value chain emissions by no later than 2050.
Race to Zero is the largest ever alliance committed to halving global emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The campaign represents over 4,000 businesses estimated to cover nearly 25% global of CO2 emissions and more than 50% of GDP. BAT’s commitment comes ahead of important global milestones in the fight to address climate change, including the G20 Summit in October and the COP26 Conference in Glasgow on climate change in November.