“Every year, as part of Choose Responsibly for a Clean City platform, BAT Romania runs social responsibility campaigns for environment protection, as well as for raising awareness on the importance of correct and responsible commercial policies and the prevention of minors’ access to tobacco and nicotine products,” Ileana Dumitru, Corporate & Regulatory Affairs Director for South Eastern Europe Area at BAT told Sustainability Today.
“With a circular vision on sustainability, which covers the entire life cycle of its products, BAT Romania has also launched in 2021 a national take-back scheme for recycling the previous versions of glo, its heating device for tobacco and herbal consumables. In 2022, the program was extended to BAT’s vaping devices. Currently, more than 360 collection points are active across Romania, and so far, more than 155 thousand devices were collected.”
What are the main objectives and activities of the BAT Romania campaign on this year’s International Environment Day?
This year, on World Environment Day, which marks the beginning of the summer season, BAT Romania launched a new campaign to raise awareness about the significant impact that simple individual actions can have on the environment. Under the Choose Responsibly for a Clean City platform, the new campaign encourages tourists to adopt eco-friendly behaviors during their holidays, aiming to keep the waters and beaches clean. The campaign features messages like, “This summer, leave only memories at the seaside, not waste,” and “This summer, leave only footprints on the sand, not packaging.” These messages are displayed along the highway to the Romanian seaside and promoted through media and online channels.
This year’s sustainability campaign draws awareness on beach waste, as hundreds of thousands of tourists spend their summer holidays on the Romanian coast every year, with a significant amount of waste remaining behind. According to the most recent data, the most common types of waste monitored on Romanian beaches are those from artificial polymers (over 85%), followed by metal, glass/ceramics, rubber, paper/cardboard, textiles and processed wood waste. At the same time, floating or under the sea waste, such as metal, mesh, textiles, wood or glass, can be found on the Romanian sea coast.
Choose Responsibly for a Clean City campaign reached its 6th edition this year, with BAT also being recognized by the Financial Times as a climate leader in 2024, for the 4th consecutive year. In this context, this year’s BAT Romania sustainability campaign aligns with the company’s sustainability goals, by promoting eco-responsible behavior at an individual level, in real – life everyday situations and which, through multiplication, contribute to building A Better Tomorrow™ – our company strategic mission.
Caring for the environment and the community starts with individual responsibility and manifests through small, consistent actions that, when multiplied, can create significant positive change on a large, social scale. At BAT, we are dedicated to building A Better Tomorrow™ not only for our consumers but for the society we all share. We believe that small, everyday actions—such as properly disposing of waste, conserving resources, and choosing sustainable products—collectively have a profound impact on our environment. We hope to inspire more people to recognize the power of their individual choices and understand how these simple, repetitive gestures contribute to a better tomorrow for everyone.
What are the future sustainability projects that BAT Romania is considering?
Every year, as part of Choose Responsibly for a Clean City platform, BAT Romania runs social responsibility campaigns for environment protection, as well as for raising awareness on the importance of correct and responsible commercial policies and the prevention of minors’ access to tobacco and nicotine products.
With a circular vision on sustainability, which covers the entire life cycle of its products, BAT Romania has also launched in 2021 a national take-back scheme for recycling the previous versions of glo, its heating device for tobacco and herbal consumables. In 2022, the program was extended to BAT’s vaping devices. Currently, more than 360 collection points are active across Romania, and so far, more than 155 thousand devices were collected.
Thus, since its launch in 2019 the Choose Responsibly for a Clean City platform was gradually developed from a responsible waste management awareness campaign to a complex platform covering comprehensive responsibility campaigns for Romania`s cities and communities, including our employees, in line with BAT`s commitment to delivering a positive social impact.
In the future, our key area of focus in terms of sustainability projects will remain initiatives aimed at driving positive changes from an individual level, having an enormous scaling potential through repetition and multiplication. We aim to deliver a positive social impact and our essential role is in developing the campaigns and mechanisms that encourage individuals and communities multiply the simple, repetitive gestures that can make a significant difference in driving positive changes for the future.
How is sustainability promoted within BAT Romania internally?
Every year, BAT Romania entities develop internal initiatives such as blood donation campaigns, selective waste collection, textile donations for reuse and recycling or planting and afforestation actions. For example, this year, BAT Romania employees planted over 5,000 trees, thus contributing to the regeneration of the ecosystem in Calarasi County.
At the same time, plastic or cardboard beverage containers used at BAT Romania offices were replaced this year with ceramic cups, to encourage reuse and waste elimination, thus reducing over 2 tons of waste annually.
Sustainability is front and center everything we do at BAT and this is promoted internally also by ensuring our employees an inspirational work environment that promotes our sustainability goals and company values. For example, each year we celebrate internally BAT Cultural and Diversity Day, that focuses on the complementarity that each of our employees brings in BAT family`s universe and the importance of common, shared objectives in a highly diverse environment.
What are BAT’s main global sustainability objectives and how do you measure the success of sustainability initiatives within the company?
BAT is a leading, multi-category consumer goods business. Our purpose is to create A Better Tomorrow™ by switching as many smokers as we can to our smokeless products. Along with our principal focus on reducing the health impact of our business, we retain a strong focus on our other ESG priorities. Together, this approach helps to create shared value for our consumers, society, our employees and our shareholders.
And we are proud that our sustainability journey, which began over 20 years ago, has been recognized by prestigious international institutions like the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Financial Times, which included BAT in 2024, for the fourth consecutive year, on its climate leaders list, for outstanding results in the field of combating climate change, highlighting the company’s achievements in reducing carbon emissions.
We rely on natural resources to operate our business, so securing these resources and minimizing their use are crucial to our strategy. As a global company, we recognize our responsibility to society at large. That’s why we’re committed to excellence in environmental management.
Each of our sustainability priorities is backed by clear and measurable targets and metrics, as highlighted in our Annual Combined Business and Sustainability Performance Report, which highlights the progress achieved in meeting our sustainability goals. Our ESG pillar is of strategic importance at BAT and thus, we assess, monitor and report multiple targets and metrics in terms of sustainability, with focus areas such as climate change, circular economy, water consumption, farmer livelihoods and communities, human rights, health and safety, employees, diversity and culture and many more.
