The CFO spoke with Tadeu Marroco, finance and transformation director at BAT, on addressing greenwashing claims and leading a £1.3bn company-wide efficiency project
The tobacco industry and ESG is not something you tend to associate with each other. In fact, the industry has been flagged as one of the most polluting, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently accusing leading tobacco companies of greenwashing their sustainability achievements.
Tadeu Marroco, finance and transformation director at BAT (British American Tobacco), has an interesting journey ahead of him as he looks to transition the FTSE 100 company to becoming greener and meeting the mounting sustainability pressures from investors.
Alongside this, Marroco is also tasked with driving efficiencies in a company-wide project currently estimated to have saved the group £1.3bn so far.
In the second instalment of our CFO Notebook series, we spoke with Marroco on the challenges he’s facing in driving a greener future and the steps he’s taking to address greenwashing claims.
00:00 Intro
01:07 BATs sustainability journey so far
05:12 Navigating ESG challenges
08:24 Addressing greenwashing claims
12:48 Leading a £1.3bn transformation project
15:02 Transferring the Russian arm of BAT following the Ukraine crisis
What are some of the key challenges you faced in the company’s transition to becoming greener and what steps have you taken to improve the situation?
Marroco: We are working very hard to decarbonise our business operations and our whole value chain. We have already achieved a 43% reduction in terms of scope 1 and 2 emissions and a 20% reduction in scope 3 against our 2017 baseline. We are making a lot of progress on that. We have almost 65% of our energy sourcing operating sites which are renewable and we are conducting lifecycle assessments of our products to reduce the carbon emissions in the design. When it comes to new products in our pipeline related to those new categories, they are designed with this mindset.
As well, we are engaging with our largest suppliers for materials so they can also achieve carbon neutrality. We are nearing our scope 3 targets we have by 2050, to come to neutrality, including the whole value chain. So it’s important to get the suppliers on board early on in this process.
Watch our first episode with Mohit Daswani, CFO at ThoughtSpot, on the secrets to running a successful SaaS business and preparing the company for its upcoming IPO here.
Click here to watch previous episodes from our CFO Notebook series.
To watch more video content from The CFO, subscribe to our YouTube channel here.
To learn more about the topic featured in this article, as well as other key trends impacting senior finance leaders, register now for our CFO Executive Dialogue event taking place on October 13, 2022.