British American Tobacco awarded leader status in Global Child Forum report

British American Tobacco has been awarded ‘leader’ status in the Global Child Forum’s benchmarking report. This report assesses and benchmarks 700 companies across nine industries and tracks the progress on how children’s rights are addressed within the corporate sector.

BAT received a score of 9.2 out of 10, compared to ‘industry’ (food, beverage and tobacco) and ‘all companies’ averages of just 5.6. Leader status is awarded to those companies who have developed and implemented policies and practices that address the organisation’s impact on children’s rights across a number of key areas, and have taken concrete steps to move beyond policies, embedding children’s rights into company practice.

BAT’s comprehensive approach to due diligence around child labour risk in its supply chain, its founding membership of the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco-growing Foundation and its commitment to responsible product marketing that explicitly prohibits advertising to anyone under the age of 18, contributed to its leadership status.

Simon Cleverly, Group Head of Corporate Affairs at British American Tobacco, said: “The Global Child Forum index is unique in that it considers a company’s approach to child rights not just across its workplace and supply chain but also marketplace and community impacts. Our leader status score recognises the work we are doing and our commitment to conduct our operations in a way that respects the human rights of our employees, the people we work with and the communities in which we operate.”

This is the second Global Child Forum report; the first was published in 2014. In determining each company’s score, organisations were assessed across three areas: Policies & Commitments (what are the policies in place and are they publicly available?); Implementation (what are the responsibilities and procedures to implement the policies?); and Reporting & Actions (how does the company address negative impacts and/or make positive contributions?).

Read the report and find out more information about the methodology and the selection of companies included.