Think global, act local was a familiar rallying cry of environmentalists in the early 1970s, but it was also taken to heart by a global organization that is not, at first sight, a natural ally of the green lobby.

Around that time British American Tobacco began to find that the small farmers it had long relied upon to grow tobacco were running out of the wood burnt to cure the crop. In the developing countries where the company sources most of its tobacco, its growers were chopping down trees for firewood at an unsustainable rate.

The problem surfaced first in Brazil, where 20 per cent of the group’s tobacco is grown. Thirty years ago, the local British American Tobacco company began supplying tree seedlings to its farmers in Southern Brazil, who owned small plots usually no bigger than one hectare.

The original plan was simply to ensure a local supply of fuel for curing and cooking, but the group soon realized that as a global organization it was ideally placed to influence the management practices of its 250,000 growers in 23 countries. This was at a time when the environmental performance of firms was increasingly in the spotlight.

‘We realized there were significant opportunities to apply global standards of environmental management and to positively influence others, from farmers to other companies,’ says British American Tobacco’s development director for environment, health and safety, Chris Lamb.

Since that time, the group has extended its tree planting programme to a further 14 countries including Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kenya and Uganda. In total, group companies and their tobacco farmers have planted 590 million trees to create the equivalent of 267,000 hectares (660,000 acres) of renewable woodland – making British American Tobacco one of the world’s largest tree planters outside the timber and paper industries. Most of the species used – such as acacia, eucalyptus, ipil ipil, neem and shishu – grow quickly to provide the small farmers with a sustainable fuel source for cooking and tobacco-curing.

British American Tobacco operates nurseries that stock the seedlings and planting materials. The farmers then plant the trees alongside their tobacco crops. Not all of them want to plant trees – their land may be very fertile, or they are reluctant to set productive cropland aside for slower-growing trees – so the company seeks alternative locations nearby. In Bangladesh in the early 1980s, for example, farmers worried that the trees would not be ready for harvest for some years, so British American Tobacco Bangladesh planted trees alongside 877 kilometres (550 miles) of canal banks, roadsides and railway lines.

The survival rate of the seedlings (70 per cent) is high, according to the group, which trains the farmers how to care for them after planting. Tree planting and subsequent maintenance is part of the local agricultural extension services that British American Tobacco offers the farmers. The services provide advice to the farmers on ‘all aspects of agriculture,’ including soil quality and crop rotation.

The trees provide a renewable source of fuel and help to reduce global warming by locking up carbon. Tree planting alone is an inadequate response to climate change on the part of a multinational corporation, of course, and it was not long before the work begun with small farmers in developing countries was extended to take a more comprehensive account of the company’s overall impact on the environment.

British American Tobacco has put systems in place to manage its overall environmental impact, but admits it has some way to go on third-party verification of its performance and audit process, saying these are ‘key improvement areas’.

In 1999, the company set out to quantify the environmental impact of its afforestation programme and sought the help of Edinburgh University’s Centre for Carbon Management (ECCM) to assess the uptake of carbon dioxide by the trees.

The ECCM found that the carbon sequestration potential of the group’s tree programmes worldwide is approximately 3.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. This compares with an estimated 2.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted in 2001 by the company and its tobacco growers. In other words, the company’s tree planting scheme could be soaking up more carbon dioxide than the entire company produces.

British American Tobacco is now quantifying this more precisely. With the help of the ECCM it is compiling an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions from logistics and manufacturing centres. ‘For a group of British American Tobacco’s size and geographic spread, this is a considerable challenge,’ says Richard Tipper, a director at the ECCM.

The inventory will help the group to assess how best to reach the target, set out in its first social report, of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 5.2 per cent by 2008, in line with the Kyoto Protocol.

British American Tobacco is keen to stress that afforestation is only one arm of its environmental management system. It is also working to reduce agrochemical use in tobacco growing and to maintain soil quality. In the autumn of 2000, it launched a biodiversity partnership with non-governmental organizations, including Earthwatch and Fauna & Flora International, to research and develop conservation practices.

‘Our main focus is on energy, water and waste reduction and increased recycling,’ says Lamb. The social report sets clear targets, such as a three per cent reduction in water use by 2003.

The next step for the group is to validate its environmental management systems to ISO 14001 standards. So far, 40 per cent of its world business is certified, but it aims to reach 75 per cent within three years. The certification work is being carried out by an independent agency.

British American Tobacco emphasizes that its approach is based not just on concern for the environment but on sound business sense. ‘Everything we handle – tobacco, paper and board – is grown in the natural environment,’ says Lamb. ‘It therefore makes both economic and environmental sense to ensure that our use of raw materials is fully sustainable.’

Many of the farmers involved in the afforestation programme have now become self-sufficient in fuel. For those faced with virtual deforestation, the programme is not only welcome but essential.