BAT Hungary starts partnership program to support environmental efforts

BAT's objective is to develop partnerships with companies and startups with a high focus on sustainability and determined to develop innovative and sustainable solutions while observing values such as innovation, diversity, and responsibility. Interested companies can register their proposals on the platform available online till October 4.

Once registered, the BAT team will evaluate the proposed solution from the perspective of business needs and sustainability criteria met. Selected companies will be formally invited to join BAT on its journey to "A Better Tomorrow". All registered companies will be added to an internal database for future reference.

BAT has announced its commitment to reaching carbon neutrality across its value chain by 2050. In 2020 BAT announced its ambition to be carbon neutral for emissions resulting from its own business activities by 2030. This new commitment aims to also cut emissions across its value chain. This builds on BAT's existing efforts to engage with suppliers on climate change and to support contracted farmers in adopting less carbon-intensive farming techniques. 

Radu Dobrescu, CES operations director in BAT, said, "We are at a pivotal moment in our transformation and are committed to building the enterprise of the future. We aim to excel in sustainability in multiple areas and are proud to announce our new business partner program with which we can achieve our ambitious environmental goals as soon as possible."

Having achieved its water recycling target ahead of time, BAT has also announced it will set the bar higher, to increase the amount of water recycled to 30% by 2025. By 2025, BAT also aims to have 100% of all manufacturing sites certified by the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS).

In March 2020, the company announced stretching new ESG targets as part of its strategy called "A Better Tomorrow". According to the latest ESG report, BAT succeeded in:

· Increasing consumers of non-combustible products by 3 million to 13.5 million at year-end 2020

· Increasing New Categories revenue by 15% in 2020 versus 2019

· Increasing renewable energy to 26% - a 10% increase from last year, and a greater than 30% reduction in overall carbon emissions since 2019

· Reducing water withdrawn by nearly 11% since 2019

· Holding more than 38,000 human rights training sessions, with more than 390,000 attendances across its supply chain, and

· Reaching 38% of female representation in management roles.

Esaú Freire, Hungary operations director in BAT, said, "These are times of great environmental challenges but also of great opportunities and to help us on this journey, we would like to invite you to join the 'Be a Supplier' program and help us finding innovative ways to deliver our environmental ambition and building 'A Better Tomorrow' for our consumers and society."