Asia-Pacific health and consumer groups have dismissed last week's release of the tobacco giant British American Tobacco's (BAT) first global 'social responsibility' report, one that avoids acknowledging the addictive nature of nicotine.

"It looks like business as usual for BAT," said Mary Assunta, media officer for the Consumers Association of Penang in Malaysia.

Assunta, doing research into the tobacco industry in Malaysia while on sabbatical in Australia, argues that the failure of BAT  it is not a 'PR' document — social reporting is about squarely addressing the issues surrounding our products," Martin Broughton, BAT chairman, said in his launch remarks.

The preparation of BAT's report has been dogged by controversy ever since BAT consultants began convening meetings of 'stakeholders' in 14 selected 'markets' late last year to "explore stakeholder mapping and classification".

In launching the report, Broughton acknowledged that many — "particularly most health and scientific stakeholders" — had boycotted the process

While BAT's head office in London is delaying the posting of the report on the Internet, BAT Malaysia was ahead of its own head office.

Voluntary marketing guidelines

BAT proclaims that its 'social responsibility' is demonstrated by the adoption in September 2001 of voluntary marketing guidelines. According to BAT, these new "globally consistent international marketing standards" represent "a raising of the bar".

In Malaysia, BAT 'stakeholders' recommended that the company "consider eventual cessation of all marketing (i.e. advertising and promotion) efforts of cigarettes even to adults".

But for BAT, this was an unpalatable suggestion it quickly rejected. "The suggestion to stop marketing directly to consumers is currently beyond our responsible marketing targets," it bluntly responded. "What they are actually saying is that 'we are not going to change'," Assunta said.

Global financial market analysts also do not believe that the marketing standards will adversely affect sales volumes.

A leaked memo from a tobacco analyst for Credit Suisse Group states that this initiative is simply a proactive way "to improve the tobacco industry's image".

The memo states that "by proactively setting new international tobacco marketing standards, the multinationals could be trying to counter a number of proposals that the WHO (World Health Organisation) has been working on to curb the amount of cigarettes that are consumed on an international level".

Reputation management

While BAT is keen to counter scepticism that its report may be about public relations or 'reputation management' — as PR practitioners more genteelly describe it — a summary of the 'dialogue' meetings held in Uganda last year has bolstered the scepticism of health advocates.

"Long-term threats to the tobacco industry from the likes of the WHO and the World Bank through their tobacco hostile policies could possibly be eroded by carefully considering the reputation management initiatives and (corporate) giving and communities," the minutes stated.

Health advocates believe BAT is increasingly despondent about its ability to arrest falling sales in developed countries. "I think this is one of the last throws of the dice (for BAT), it is an effort to try and say 'look we can't do anything but tell us what we can do'," said Simon Chapman, professor of public health and community medicine at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Chapman, editor of the international journal Tobacco Control , has little sympathy for BAT and other tobacco companies. "A healthy tobacco industry is incompatible with robust public health," he pointed out.

While BAT's reporting framework provides for reporting data on the occupational health and safety performance of its employees, it omits requiring information on the health impacts on the consumers of its products.

British American Tobacco last year sold over 800 billion cigarettes, accounting for some 15 percent of the world market. WHO, which is pressing for a global convention to reduce tobacco consumption, estimates that tobacco-related deaths would rise from the current 4 million each year to 7 million by 2030.

Based on these trends, the London-based Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) estimates that BAT's share of the global tobacco-related death toll could average as much as 1 million people per year over the next 30-year period.

"This is the most important impact of its products and should be estimated in its social reporting," wrote Clive Bates, director of ASH. — IPS