ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews how British American Tobacco (BAT) has aligned its corporate social responsibility programmes with its Investor Relation communications. BAT is the world's most international tobacco group, with brands sold in 180 markets around the world. The key features of the Group are its strongly multicultural workforce and its devolved structure, with each local company having wide freedom of action and responsibility for its operations. Decisions are made as close as possible to the local stakeholders of each business, within a framework of principles, standards, policies, strategies and delegated authorities. Compared to the resources available to sell-side and some buy-side analytical teams, the socially responsible investment analyst may have a vast portfolio of sectors under coverage with no time to look at individual companies in depth or read and analyse the social and environmental reports that many companies now produce.
