AB Sustain has a wealth of tobacco farming and processing sustainability data gathered over the last 16 years on a global scale. The latest iteration of our sustainability service, the Sustainable Tobacco Programme (STP), was launched in 2016. This collaborative, industry wide initiative is supported and operated in the supply chains of six leading tobacco brand owners. The programme operates in over 52 countries and gathers data on 180+ suppliers of tobacco across 5 million smallholders. Our specialist assessors work with field technicians and supply chain business owners to verify the data collected on farms. We gather data on over 1000 sustainability indicators across five pillars; Governance, Crop, People, Facilities and Environment, to give a holistic and verified report into practices at both tobacco processing sites and their supplying farms. At the programme’s core is continuous improvement, with a strong focus on providing supply chains the information/data needed to help drive positive change.

The next step for STP is to further validate this approach, and provide ongoing tangible evidence that it is delivering change for the industry in a sustainable way. There is also the opportunity to add value to the wider sustainability landscape through leveraging the dataset that we have amassed to provide further insight into global practices and the impact of change.