Tobacco companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities like disaster relief and education programs. However, these activities may be intended to improve their public image and help market cigarettes, rather than out of genuine commitment to social causes. Their youth smoking prevention programs often have the opposite effect by making smoking seem like an adult activity. CSR cannot make up for the lethal health effects of cigarettes, and tobacco companies should commit $1 billion to independent research on developing a harmless cigarette instead of using CSR as a defensive business strategy.

1. Corporate Social Responsibility and Tobacco Industry: Call for a $ Billion Dollar
Independent Research Fund
The negative effects of tobacco on human health are well known, but it is the role of tobacco
companies that needs to be scrutinized. On one hand, tobacco companies are responsible for
millions of deaths as it continues to push tobacco around the world and on the other these same
companies are spending millions of dollars in CSR activities – disaster relief, education, and
poverty elimination. Should these companies be allowed to carry out business as usual when it
is cigarette smoking that has become a big health concern globally? In fact, in some cases their
CSR initiatives are helping them to market their products.
One area where nearly every major tobacco company invests publicity efforts to improve their
corporate image is the development and promotion of ineffective youth smoking prevention
programmes. While these programmes are created to appear to dissuade or prevent young
people from smoking, in fact, the effect is often the contrary. By portraying smoking as an adult
activity, these programmes increase the appeal of cigarettes for adolescents. Proposed
measures that involve proof of age for purchase at the counter are ultimately ineffective, as
young people easily circumvent these restrictions. Tactically, these programmes serve the
purpose of creating the appearance that tobacco companies are proposing solutions for the
problems they create.
Perhaps most remarkable, and most cynical, are those tobacco industry-sponsored
programmes that aspire to public health goals. For instance, extending their support to
blindness relief programmes and making a donation to the Eye Donation Societies. The cheque
is handed over at a grand public ceremony, but no mention is made of the link between smoking
and cataracts, a major cause of blindness.
All these CSR activities are causing confusion in the societal discourse of the health effects of
tobacco versus Customer Interest. The customer should be provided with a product that gives
him the pleasure of smoking without ill effects. Doing CSR and making profits as usual with
scant regard to customer interest is a mere hogwash.
Tobacco companies are simply not like other companies. Tobacco products are legal. But they
are also lethal. Tobacco is the only consumer product available that kills one-half of its regular
users. As such, in terms of CSR activities, they cannot simply do what other companies are

2. doing. Through their thinly-veiled attempts to gain corporate respectability, they continue to use
unethical and irresponsible strategies to promote its products.
The Strategyof Denial
The World Health Organisation estimates that tobacco causes approximately 5 million deaths
annually worldwide, a number expected to double by 2025. Cigarettes have become the number
one legally available killer product in the market and are a major cause of cancer among the
consumers. However, the tobacco industry refused to concede the reality of tobacco hazards
until the late 1990s. Instead, the industry sought to target physicians and others with its
message of "no proof," using subtle techniques of deception, including the funding of spurious
research, duplicitous press releases, and propaganda efforts directed at physicians and the
employment of historians to construct exculpatory narratives. (Proctor, 2004)
Defensive Strategy
The last three decades were a period full of scandals and turmoil in the tobacco industry. The
lawsuits, discovery and release of millions of pages of internal company documents, increasing
restrictions on public smoking, legislative investigations, and growing political pressures to
regulate the industry by the civil society; all had serious implications for investors' confidence
and share price. As such, tobacco companies have departed from old PR tactics, purposeful
deception and have embarked on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to address the main
issues of their industry. However, one has to examine the CSR activities of the Tobacco
companies as to ascertain whether their actions are based on genuine commitment to
stakeholder interest or it is just another defensive business strategy to protect them from
prosecution and legal action. (Brand 2012). Further, one could question whether the CSR has
brought changes to their business model or are they still continuing to practice their core
business of manufacturing and marketing cigarettes for profit making at the expense of the lives
of their main stakeholder – customer - rendering CSR an oxymoron. Among the Tobacco
companies in the world, Phillip Morris (PM) and British American Tobacco Company (BAT) rank
in the top two positions. They are the leaders and are the ones who were really under pressure
from the society to change. In effect, a host of CSR initiatives were launched by them and the
other players also followed suit.

3. Toying with Standards
A leading CSR code is the AA1000S Assurance Standard developed by the Institute of Social
and Ethical Accountability. Another leading code, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) originated
with the United Nations Environment Program. GRI's "Sustainability Reporting Guidelines" is
oriented to corporate behavior in six categories: economic impacts, environment, labor
practices, human rights, business ethics, and product responsibility. BAT's two annual social
reports have selected elements of both the AA1000 and GRI standards. (Hirschhorn 2004)
Management theory on stakeholders proposes that large corporations have obligations beyond
the traditional stockholder: "social contracts" with customers, suppliers, employees, trade
associations, political groups, NGOs, governments, communities, among others. Stakeholders
are a principal focus of social responsibility declarations by both PM and BAT. Whether BAT
even made a fair application of the stakeholder principle has been vigorously questioned by
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH UK). (Hirschhorn 2004)
Compliance to Regulations
The websites of all major tobacco companies do mention that people should consider risks of
smoking as it may cause serious and fatal diseases. But they also say that the health risks in
groups may vary by the amount smoked - highest in those that smoke for more years and
smoke more cigarettes per day and that the risks reduce in groups of people who quit smoking..
They also say that smoking is addictive, and it can be very difficult to stop smoking and that the
only way to be certain of avoiding the risks of smoking is not to smoke. They even provide
information about “quitting smoking programs”. This gives an impression that it is easy to give
up smoking. Within a short period time one gets addicted to smoking. Tobacco industry very
well know how difficult to quit smoking for an addict.
All those information that appear in websites and publications are only mere statements. Such
statements have shown no positive effect on reducing smoking among the smokers or taking up
smoking by the youth. Further, they also describe their efforts in developing a less harmful
cigarette and how much of careful effort they take in this regard. BAT website states that they
offer adult smokers a range of products – from traditional cigarettes right through to less risky
alternatives, such as e-cigarettes. In the guise of being socially responsible they are pushing e-
cigarettes to tap into a new market segment by making them believe that these are credible less

4. risky alternatives to conventional cigarettes. But new scientific evidence are showing e-
cigarettes are also having dangerous health effects. Tobacco industry states that they have
spent decades researching how to create less risky products and believe the technology is right.
However, when historical backgrounds of tobacco companies are considered, skepticism creeps
into one's mind about what they say through statements and websites and their real action.
They very well know that if they reduce the addictive substances such as nicotine in cigarettes,
their sales will drop drastically.
Tobacco Companies position on who their consumers are is very specific. They say that they do
not market products to the younger generation, but the reality is that the youth of today is likely
to indulge in the pleasure of smoking. Tobacco companies just cannot survive without them as
they need fresh consumers to replace the ones who have succumbed to their ill fate. They say
smoking is an "informed choice" for the adults. We interrogate, if it is an "informed choice" how
can cigarette consumption increase day by day throughout the world. Are adults also taking
decisions like immature kids? Then what is the value in "informed choice"? The Cigarette
consumption has grown from few billion per year in 1990 to approximately 5.5. Trillion worldwide
in the present. (Proctor 2004).
A Radical Approach
Cigarettes are well proven to be poison. Well before the Western interpretation of Corporate
Social Responsibility, Lord Buddha more than 2500 years ago has said the businesses one
should not engage, and one of them is poison. The irony is that the producers themselves
specifically say that it is a poison and yet are able to sell the product making it freely available.
That’s is the only product available for consumption in massive scale with a label “poison”. If the
cigarette industry is a socially responsible organisation, it should stop production or at least
curtail its production and invest in research and development of a product that gives the
pleasure of smoking but is free from harmful chemicals that are mass killers.
I strongly argue that the CSR undertaken by the Tobacco Industry should be aligned to its core
business activities. Killing millions through its product and saving a few through its CSR efforts
is not the right way to go about it. Although tobacco industry declares how much money they
spend on research and development, it is not very clear what percentage they spent on
developing a harmless cigarette.

5. I am of the view that tobacco industry is dragging their feet for their own benefit by not
producing a cigarette without harmful effects. I want them to curtail the production, stop all types
of direct or indirect marketing, publicity or bogus CSR activities and commit $ 1 Billion to an
independent research institution to develop a harmless cigarette. I believe that would hasten
the development of harmless cigarette. If they want to clean their image, they should make a
transition from Corporate Social Responsibility to Socially Responsible Corporate.
References:
Brandt A.M. (2012) Inventing Conflicts of Interest: A History of Tobacco Industry tactics. Am J
Public Health. 2012 January; 102(1): 63–71. Published online 2012 January. doi:
10.2105/AJPH.2011.300292
Hirschhorn N. (2005) Corporate Social responsibility and the tobacco industry: hope or hype?
Tob Control 2004; 13:447-453 doi:10.1136/tc.2003.006676
Proctor R.N. (2004) Global Smoking Epidemic: A History and Status Report, Department of
History, Stanford University, CA
Protor R.N. (2012) Everyone knew bit no one had proof: tobacco industry use of medical history
experts in US Courts, 1990-2002, Tob Control 2006;15(Suppl 4):iv117–iv125[PMC free article]
[PubMed
Report of the Surgeon General of USA 2014, Center for Disease Control, USA
Phrabhavanaviriyakhun (2015) http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma5/buddhisteco.html
http://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/sac/pdfs/http___repositories.cdlib.pdf