The World Health Organization's No Tobacco Day, May 31, has the environment as its theme this year. The WHO website shows the figures that speak for themselves. This causes tobacco production.
- 600.000.000 trees cut down
- 84.000.000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions
- 22.000.000.000 liters of water.
Tobacco is harmful to the environment at every stage: cultivation, manufacturing and use. And the damage is not just limited to cigarette manufacturing, explained researcher Andy Rowell at a seminar organized by WHO ahead of No Tobacco Day.
Andy Rowell said the industry is now moving towards new products, such as e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products. But new does not mean more environmentally friendly.
– It will be a new type of waste that will be very dangerous and contribute to climate change, says Andy Rowell.
He takes the e-cigarette as an example, made of plastic, runs on energy-intensive batteries and leaks toxic chemicals.
This is far from the message that the tobacco industry itself is sending out. British American Tobacco, BAT, has the slogan A better tomorrow and says that “sustainability is at the heart of everything we do to build a better tomorrow”. Their sustainability work has also been appreciated. In November 2021, BAT celebrated meeting the requirements for the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for 20 years. The Financial Times has awarded them as a leader in climate work. Competitor Philip Morris (PMI) can boast of having been A-listed in the climate index of the CDP, Climate Disclosure Project, for five years.
Unique in its dangerousness
But shouldn't these nice sustainability indexes be a guarantee that tobacco companies are taking their responsibility? No, Andy Rowell is not mincing words.
– This is an industry that is uniquely dangerous. We have known for a long time that it kills one in two of those who consume it for a long time. We often forget to say that it is also killing the planet.
A scientific summary from the WHO explains shortcomings in sustainability assessments that allow tobacco companies to successfully spread the image of themselves as sustainable.
- Sustainability analyses do not always look at the main production from the company, but can be assessed from ancillary activities.
- Often the systems are based on self-reporting.
- There is no standardized measure of sustainability index, but companies can choose from 600 measurement systems. If things are going poorly in one sustainability index, they can switch to another, so the poor result is not noticeable.
Engaging in greenwashing – presenting oneself as environmentally friendly but actually being environmentally dangerous – is therefore possible, and tobacco companies have so far gotten away with the environmental debate, says Andy Rowell.
– We often talk about how big oil companies cause climate change, but we don't talk about tobacco companies even though their climate impact can be compared to that caused by a big oil company.
For Kevin Genga in Migori County, Kenya, environmental degradation is a reality. The advance of tobacco companies is visible everywhere in the community where he lives.
– When tobacco companies came and recruited farmers to work on tobacco plantations, it led to the forests being emptied of trees, our rivers being dried up, our farms being destroyed and the environment being polluted.
He is now working on a project to build tobacco-free farms and replant forests.
– The goal is to live in harmony with nature, as we did before the tobacco plantations.
Governments should help tobacco farmers switch to sustainable crops, which is one of the main messages of No Tobacco Day. It is also in line with the Tobacco Convention, Article 17, on supporting economically viable alternative activities for tobacco farmers, and Article 18, on the need for Parties to work to protect the environment and human health.
Tobacco companies sued for environmental damage in Nigeria
Another message for No Tobacco Day is that tobacco companies should be held accountable for what they have done. This is what Oluwafemi Mathew Akinbode in Nigeria is working towards. He has spent 20 years organizing at the grassroots level and leads CAPPA, an organization that, among other things, works to stop companies that abuse natural resources. He says that after a very long legal battle, the oil company Shell will be held accountable for the damage they have caused in two local communities that live on fishing.
– It took 18 years but now they will be forced to pay 100 million dollars.
In the same way, legal proceedings are being conducted against tobacco companies. It is a time-consuming process, a lawsuit against a tobacco company was filed ten years ago and there is still no result. But despite that, Oluwafemi Mathew Akinbode believes in the method and wants it to become part of the work on tobacco control.
– What we have today is scientific evidence of the environmental and climate impact of tobacco companies. Now is the time to start holding them accountable on all fronts, locally, nationally and internationally.
– We need to create a strong bond between the climate movement and the tobacco control movement and also see the possibilities of linking the tobacco convention and the climate convention to make demands on tobacco companies, says Oluwafemi Mathew Akinbode.
Source:
WHO webinar
WHO brief
