Risky products require a high priority business strategy for reducing the harmful effects. British American Tobacco is striving to make its products safer. One possible approach is to reduce the chemical constituents thought to cause disease; another is to dilute tobacco smoke with other kinds of less harmful smoke. It would help if regulators worked more closely with the companies involved to reduce the risks.

Features of note include:

Stakeholders require the company to introduce safer brands in developing countries where it has high market share

The application of science to help crack the problem. It would be interesting to know what proportion of the group’s income is devoted to trying to find technical solutions to mitigate the health risks to smokers

The recognition that the development of low-tar cigarettes is only one phase in a programme of research into safer products

The aspiration to produce a new generation of cigarettes with mass appeal that would pose reduced health risks to smokers.

Simon Webley, Institute of Business Ethics