A Paradox of ‘Sustainable’ Tobacco Business: Rethinking Sustainability Reporting from Ethics and Public Health Perspectives

Public health recognizes that businesses significantly shape people’s health and health inequities. Over time, businesses have been increasingly asked to make disclosures about their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts. India mandates the top 1000 listed companies by market capitalization to submit business responsibility and sustainability reports. In this context, we discuss how the tobacco industry, which causes significant health and environmental harms, ought to be seen as distinct from many other businesses. We demonstrate three problematic aspects of how tobacco companies are reporting on sustainability: (1) their reporting creates a false impression of them being ‘responsible’ businesses, (2) they routinely underplay the ESG impacts of tobacco products and processes, and (3) the current reporting does not capture compliance with tobacco sector-specific regulatory requirements. We recommend that tobacco companies—as solo or conglomerate businesses—should be mandated to use a tobacco sector-specific template, developed by the regulator with no influence from the tobacco sector, that includes tobacco-specific ESG and health impacts as well as tobacco-specific regulatory compliance. We suggest that the proposed ESG rating shall either exclude the tobacco industry or rate it alongside other ‘harm/extractive’ industries. It shall not be allowed to use such reports for publicity gains.