Improve the quality of life of people in our supply chain

Our supply chain connects us with millions of people, from the farmers and farmworkers who cultivate our tobacco and other agricultural products, to workers at the supplier companies that provide the products and services we need to run our business.

 

 

Improve roadmap goals

Our 2025 Roadmap goals

see our full 2025 roadmap

IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF PEOPLE IN OUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Eradicate systemic child labor in our tobacco supply chain.

Ensure all contracted tobacco farmers make a living income, partner with our direct suppliers to promote a living wage for their workers.

Key performance indicators to track our progress

Eradicate systemic child labor in our tobacco supply chain

In 2024, child labor prevalence affected 0.01 percent of our purchased tobacco and, while we broadly eradicated systemic child labor issues in the farms we contract with, we remain committed to eradicating isolated cases.*

*For further details on how we calculate the prevalence of child labor in PMI’s tobacco supply chain, please see PMI’s Sustainability KPI Protocol 2024.

 

Ensure all contracted tobacco farmers make a living income; partner with our direct suppliers to promote a living wage for their workers
In 2024, we increased the proportion of contracted farmers supplying tobacco to PMI who made a living income (reaching 99 percent versus 96 percent in 2023), thanks to better data collection and farmer income modeling, the application of a household dependency model, and the expansion of initiatives to improve farmer income levels.
fundamentals background

See full performance metrics

view data

Learn more about PMI’s Sustainability Index in our Integrated Report 2024. See the full performance metrics and related footnotes here.

The right thing to do

Promoting and adhering to sustainable business practices in our direct and indirect operations helps safeguard human rights, improve labor conditions, protect workers' health and safety, tackle social inequities, and contribute toward alleviating poverty.

Read more

The right thing to do

Promoting and adhering to sustainable business practices in our direct and indirect operations helps safeguard human rights, improve labor conditions, protect workers’ health and safety, tackle social inequities, and contribute toward alleviating poverty. As a globally operating company with hundreds of thousands of people engaged in our value chain, our substantial scale provides us with the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the advancement of fair labor standards and to fostering prosperity.

Within our supply chain we can find parts of our business that are particularly vulnerable to the effects of poverty, including human rights abuses.

The tobacco we source is often grown on smallholder farms in many regions of the world, including low- and middle-income countries. Working to improve farmers’ livelihoods mitigates the risks of human and labor rights violations, including child labor and forced labor. Activities and investments in our supply chain extend beyond our direct effect on farmers, impacting people’s assets, capabilities, opportunities, and standards of living. As our business continues to transform, we are cognizant of the specific risks facing the electronics sector supply chain, including pervasive modern slavery risks.

The business case

Caring for the quality of life of the people in our supply chain is a major contributor to our preparedness, resilience, and long-term success.

read more

The business case

Caring for the quality of life of the people in our supply chain is a major contributor to our preparedness, resilience, and long-term success.

We anticipate that the time, energy, and resources we have invested in developing, implementing, and monitoring the application of our due diligence processes to monitor and improve the quality of life of those working in our tobacco supply chain will allow us to continue to gather learnings that will help us uphold high standards throughout the rest of our supply chain, with a particular focus on our relatively recent yet fast expanding electronics supply chain.

This will enable us to continue fostering sustainable and responsible corporate behavior anchored in human rights and environmental considerations in our value chain. Importantly, as new rules norming how businesses address and report on the impacts of their supply chains emerge, strategic focus on this topic will allow us to limit our potential exposure to human rights issues, child labor, forced labor, and other labor-related violations, and import bans, as well as reputational damage.

 

Improve roadmap goals

Our progress in 2024

Read more in our Integrated Report
Related articles, case studies and videos
ALP anniversary landing page thumbnail farmer Mexico

Social sustainability: Agricultural labor practices

read more
Pakistan-2
Human rights impact assessment in Pakistan
Water plant

Managing our supply chain sustainably

Read more

Preventing child labor in tobacco-growing communities

1:27

Preventing child labor in tobacco-growing communities

Fernanda Izarduy, Porvenir Coordinator, Salta, Argentina, speaks to camera:

I'm a coordinator in the Porvenir project.

It may look recreational and fun, but there's a content background of healthcare rights, sustainability, etc.

The support we offer aims at eradicating child labor.

Noelia Corvalan, Porvenir Tutor, Salta, Argentina, looks at the camera.

Florencia Portella, Porvenir Argentina Coordinator, Misiones, Argentina, speaks to camera:

There is a major issue here, in the Province of Misiones

regarding the dropout rates in high school.

We believe education is the key.

That school is the best place for a child.

and for them to want to be here.

We try to make schools a more friendly space.

The truth is, the response from the kids and their families,

hasbeen really good, very satisfying.

At first there were only a few, but

the numbers increased with time.

as the children invited their friends

and the word about the program spread.

There are kids who were involved in Porvenir

in the centers when we started

and now they are the teachers.

So we've made quite some progress knowing that we have a colleague

who was part of the program as a beneficiary

and now she's an important part of the workforce in the project.

Text on screen reads: The partners of PMI.

Philip Morris International logo appears on screen.

 

Women pumping water from a community well in Mozambique.
Building momentum on addressing human rights impacts in our tobacco supply chain in Mozambique
Smiling tobacco farmer

Respect human rights

read more
Focus on: Human Rights

Focus on: Human Rights

Read more

 

 

Related reports, policies and documents

Human Rights Report

download

Human Rights Commitment

download

Agricultural Labor Practices Code

download

Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)

download

Responsible Sourcing Principles

download

ALP 10 year anniversary report

download

ALP Step Change Guiding Principles

download

Sustainability KPI protocol 2024

download

Looking ahead

Given the scale and scope of our global operations from the farmers and farmworkers who cultivate our tobacco and other agricultural products to workers at supplier companies that provide the products and services we need to run our business, the opportunity to continue delivering meaningful impact and offer continued improvement to the quality of the livelihoods of people in our supply chain is immense.


We are proud of our progress in addressing labor and human rights issues within our supply chain and accordingly set ambitious targets to measure and communicate our impact. As our integration with Swedish Match progresses, we will focus on ensuring that the nicotine production supply chain’s performance, monitoring, and reporting is diligently integrated with ours, building on existing synergies and assessing actual and potential social impacts to adjust our strategy as needed.


The evolving regulatory landscape makes our efforts only more relevant, as we seek to increase traceability and transparency on the social impacts of our supply chain and strengthen our existing due diligence processes. We will continue to ensure robust monitoring and quality reporting accompany our social programs, and we will leverage the learnings gathered to expand our efforts in our fast-evolving nontobacco supply chain, with a particular focus on electronics.

Our Agricultural Labor Practices (ALP) program has been continuously refined and strengthened. Today, we apply innovative and integrated solutions to systemic issues, fully engaging with suppliers, farmers, and local communities. As the program reaches a new level of maturity, we continue to seek measures to implement consistent and increased impact on the ground. Our Social Risk Monitoring Program (SRMP), conceived with this intent, adds an additional layer of control, ensuring increased consistency in suppliers’ policies and processes. In 2025, we look forward to scaling this program globally and verifying alignment with PMI’s requirements related to child labor and living income relevant disclosures.


We aim to improve the living income of contracted farmers supplying tobacco to PMI. This year, to strengthen our approach we included a new KPI in the 2024–26 Sustainability Index cycle, targeting the most economically vulnerable populations and will increase our focus on local initiatives that generate improved income for farmers supplying tobacco to PMI. We are committed to driving a tangible and verifiable positive impact on the farmers' livelihoods and transparently communicating our progress on this front.

In 2025, we will continue to enhance our targeted supplier engagements to further develop capabilities that will assist our suppliers in implementing our Responsible Sourcing Principles (RSP). Our support for RSP compliance is facilitated through our supplier due diligence programs, utilizing the EcoVadis and RBA methodologies. We aim to delve deeper into industry-specific issues to build a more robust supplier base and ensure sustainable performance for the future over the course of 2025. We have made excellent progress toward our goal of achieving 100 percent sustainable sourcing from critical suppliers by 2025. In 2024, we strengthened our due diligence program by including over 500 suppliers of indirect material and services. In 2025, our focus will be on building capabilities within this complex supply chain and continuing to expand the coverage. Following the successful outcomes of our RBA pilots, we will expand the Responsible Factory Initiative and the Responsible Labor Initiative to additional factories based on our annual risk assessment and prioritization. Additionally, we plan to increase our collaboration with RBA, our suppliers, and other RBA members by participating in working groups and sharing insights on strengths and opportunities for improvement.

This online content about our Integrated Report should be read in conjunction with PMI’s Integrated Report 2024. This report includes metrics that are subject to uncertainties due to inherent limitations in the nature and methods for data collection and measurement. The precision of different collection and measurement techniques may also vary. This report includes data or information obtained from external sources or third parties. Unless otherwise indicated, the data contained herein cover our operations worldwide for the full calendar year 2024 or reflect the status as of December 31, 2024. Where not specified, data comes from PMI financials, nonfinancials, or estimates.

Unless explicitly stated, the data, information, and aspirations in this report do not incorporate PMI’s wellness and healthcare business, Aspeya. Regarding the Swedish Match acquisition, completed late 2022, unless otherwise indicated, this report includes information pertaining to its sustainability performance. Please also refer to "This report at a glance" on page 2 of the PMI’s Integrated Report 2024 for more information. Aspirational targets and goals do not constitute financial projections, and achievement of future results is subject to risks, uncertainties and inaccurate assumptions, as outlined in our forward-looking and cautionary statements on page 206. In PMI’s Integrated Report 2024 and in related communications, the terms “materiality,” “material,” and similar terms are defined in the referenced sustainability standards and are not meant to correspond to the concept of materiality under the U.S. securities laws and/or disclosures required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

Share this page