Don't be fooled by Big Tobacco's sustainability awards

More than 6 million people have died of COVID-19 since its outbreak in late 2019. Seeing a chance to behave as a good corporate citizen, the tobacco industry leapt into action. It distributed soaps and information leaflets and paid for billboards and health kits via a charity it sponsors.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) promotes the idea that a company should concern itself not just with profits and products but also with wider societal and environmental issues. The world’s largest tobacco firms, often referred to collectively as ‘Big Tobacco’, have made a great show of adopting CSR as a foundation of their corporate approach. They have carefully developed a reputation for corporate philanthropy, supporting an array of worthy causes from COVID to HIV/AIDS interventions to arts and cultural events and institutions. Law researcher Lissy Friedman has described Big Tobacco’s use of CSR as a “sword and a shield”: it is a bid to minimise damage to its reputation following exposés of its corporate malpractice.