KARACHI: Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) (NYSE: PM) has published its Integrated Report, a comprehensive overview of the company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and its progress towards its purpose of delivering a smoke-free future.
This includes its 2025 ambitions to have switched more than 40 million adult smokers to its smoke-free products, with half from non-OECD countries, and for smoke-free products to account for more than 50 percent of PMI’s total net revenues.
Chief Executive Officer, Jacek Olczak said, “I present this report with pride in what we have already achieved in just five years. such as smoke-free products accounting for nearly one-quarter of our total net revenues in 2020, from essentially zero in 2015.
“I also have a deep recognition of the immense work ahead. Our new ambitious goals signal our confidence in our ability to monumentally change our company’s long-term future,” Jacek added.
He said, “PMI is committed to serving as an agent of change and advocate of positive values. Innovation and inclusiveness are key to solving our challenges, whether related to tobacco harm reduction, environmental impact, or social impact.”
PMI’s Integrated Report 2020 demonstrates how the organization’s strategy, governance, and performance create value. To showcase impact, the company reports on progress in various ESG areas, including toward achieving it’s ambitious 2025 Roadmap—a set of forward-looking targets pertaining to all Tier 1 topics from PMI’s sustainability materiality assessment.
Emmanuel Babeau, Chief Financial Officer said, “Sustainability stands at the core of PMI’s transformation and drives our development of strong ESG programs to mitigate the risks associated with our value chain while spurring innovation and growth to secure our success over the long term”.
“It is our firm belief that sustainability and corporate performance do not follow separate paths, and I am proud that we have spent the last year continuing to strengthen our sustainability governance and ensuring that ESG is integrated into decision-making at all levels of our organization,” Emmanuel said.
Acknowledging the unique and difficult challenges of the past year, PMI dedicated sections throughout its Integrated Report to showing how it addressed the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on its workers, business, and value chain, as well as instances where the pandemic directly affected the company’s sustainability efforts and the adjustments made in response.
“Despite the unprecedented challenges brought on by the global pandemic, we have not deviated from our efforts to show care, support those in our orbit, and continue our quest to become a more sustainable company,” said Jennifer Motels, Chief Sustainability Officer.
As PMI continues to transform, stakeholder engagement and constructive dialogue remain paramount to this evolution, Jennifer said. In 2020, multi-stakeholder partnerships were key to the significant progress Jennifer made toward addressing many of our priority sustainability topics, Jennifer added.
“Ranging from protecting the health and safety of our employees to safeguarding the human rights of those impacted by our business and accelerating efforts to mitigate our impact on climate change throughout our value chain, Jennifer remarked.
On June 2, PMI hosted an ESG-focused webcast during which the company offered additional insight into how integrating sustainability across its business creates value for its shareholders and stakeholders.
PMI will also publish in the coming week an ESG Highlights document, which will provide a more data-focused executive summary of the Integrated Report and will be made available on PMI.com/investorrelations.
Progress on PMI’s Business Transformation – As of December 31, 2020, one of our smoke-free products was available for sale in 64 markets, and an estimated 12.7 million adult smokers had switched and stopped smoking, out of 17.5 million total smoke-free product users.
