Tackle climate change

Climate change is among the greatest threats to society. There is broad scientific consensus about the urgency of setting more ambitious emission reduction targets to limit the rise in the global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. These commitments now need to translate into concrete actions that support and are fully aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement.

 

 

tackle climate change roadmap goals

Our 2025 Roadmap goal

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TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE

Achieve carbon neutrality in our operations and accelerate our decarbonization toward net zero across our value chain.

Key performance indicators to track our progress

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See full performance metrics

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Learn more about PMI’s Sustainability Index in our Integrated Report 2021. See the full performance metrics and related footnotes here.

The right thing to do

The climate crisis, as acknowledged by the international community, threatens all livelihoods, but especially those who are most vulnerable, exacerbating inequalities.

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The right thing to do

The climate crisis, as acknowledged by the international community, threatens all livelihoods, but especially those who are most vulnerable, exacerbating inequalities. It impacts human rights, biodiversity, water access, global health, and food security, and exacerbates environmental changes such as ecosystem degradation, drought, flooding, and desertification.

While science tells us that climate change is irrefutable and unavoidable, it also tells us that it is not too late to limit global warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold that is considered the limit beyond which climate impacts will be catastrophic.

Achieving this goal will require fundamental transformations of critical aspects of society—including how we grow food crops, use land, transport goods, and power our economies. The great challenge of our times is to find a way to effectively align the public and private sectors to take critical action, and put aside existing siloed approaches and objectives.  

 

The business case

For a business like ours—with a diversified agricultural supply chain sensitive to climate changes—abrupt climate variations can have a profound impact on the secure supply of our raw materials.

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The business case

For a business like ours—with a diversified agricultural supply chain sensitive to climate changes—abrupt climate variations can have a profound impact on the secure supply of our raw materials. It may also threaten facilities and operations, transportation, and distribution chains, as well as access to power networks and water. Beyond endangering physical infrastructure and supply chains, the impacts of climate change and its effects on biodiversity loss and water insecurity—among others—undermine progress and business growth by exacerbating systems-level disruptions for customers, investors, employees, and communities.

Against this backdrop, it is essential for us to strengthen our mitigation efforts and our resilience to climate impacts. This includes reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, thereby increasing efficiency and energy savings, which in turn results in fewer inputs used over outputs and better profitability. It also means taking steps to apply innovative low-carbon technologies, which require higher investments upfront but offer meaningful emissions reductions and payback over the medium to long term.

It is also key for us to voice support for effective national and global climate policies, which inject more certainty into short- and long-term planning and investment, and position us to better anticipate regulatory risks and seize economic opportunities. 

 

tackle climate change roadmap goals

Our progress in 2021

Read more in our Integrated Report

2021 performance highlights​

  • Total value chain CO2e emissions (scope 1+2+3) reduced by 18 percent, and emissions from our direct operations (scope 1+2) by 33 percent versus 2019 baseline
  • Three additional manufacturing sites certified as carbon neutral, bringing the total to five 
  • 81 percent of electricity used in PMI’s factories came from renewable sources
  • Creation of a Portfolio of Climate Investments (PCI) to standardize and provide transparency on our approach to investments in offsets and insets
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ESG KPI Protocol

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ESG highlights

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Looking ahead

We are proud of the level of sophistication and ambition achieved to date by our climate strategy, and by the capabilities of our organization in this field, and aim to remain at the forefront of the climate neutral agenda.

 

Conditions today are uniquely favorable to accelerate decarbonization actions and projects, to reduce our overall carbon footprint and to increase our supply chain resilience by managing climate-related risks proactively and seizing increasing opportunities in the low-carbon economy. To achieve this, we believe in the power of strong ambitions, bold strategies, and investments in innovative technologies.

 

To bolster our efforts and create a sound governance context internally, we also plan to revise our shadow price and carbon levy in 2022 in order to better reflect the changes in risk and emission profiles.

 

We are highly committed to playing our role in the decarbonization of our society through actions guided by our science-based targets. We will continue to research and develop innovative solutions, explore new technologies, invest with impact to foster more and better innovation, and inspire all our people and our business partners to join us in this journey. Our learnings will be theirs to build upon, to drive a successful low-carbon transition, together. 

 

 

Massimo Andolina, Senior Vice President, Operations

In 2022, we plan to reassess climate change-related risks and opportunities in line with a 1.5 degrees Celsius scenario and the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, updating the assessment we conducted in 2018–2019.

 

We will also intensify our investment in developing tailored projects as part of the PCI strategy, in line with our expectation to trigger value on the ground by running carbon projects directly with partners in our supply chain. Through the PCI technological removal strategy initiative, we will explore the carbon tech space by investigating emerging solutions that could bring innovation and market access to carbon direct removal. Technological removals will be further expanded in our tobacco supply chain, where we aim to finalize the assessment of the potential and feasibility of biochar-based carbon sequestration within selected farming communities.

 

In our factories, we will continue to implement energy efficiency initiatives and increase the share of renewables in our energy mix. We plan to certify additional manufacturing sites as carbon neutral by the end of 2022. Building on results to date, we will continue to deploy digital and artificial intelligence solutions in our manufacturing sites to deliver additional carbon savings.

 

In our tobacco supply chain, we aim to further reduce emissions through continuous improvements in tobacco flue-curing (through efficiency efforts and further adoption of renewable fuels) and additional initiatives related to fertilizers and mechanization, to increase crop productivity and consequently reduce emissions intensity. We will monitor the implementation of our insetting projects and explore other opportunities to deploy high-quality nature-based solutions in other tobacco-growing geographies.

 

During the year, we will refine our approach to helping critical suppliers set science-based targets.

 

To further deploy fleet carbon neutrality programs, we plan to continue focusing on eco-driving behaviors through telematics and awareness campaigns and training. In 2022, we will continue to renew our fleet, accelerating the switch from internal combustion engines to more environmentally friendly powertrains such as hybrid and electric vehicles. We will also continue our efforts to minimize the carbon footprint of our offices and warehouses, and we expect to certify our first carbon neutral markets. In parallel, we will continue driving carbon reduction through diligent eco-design of our products. 

 

Claudia Berardi, Director, Environmental Sustainability, PMI Operations

This online content about our Integrated Report should be read in conjunction with PMI’s 2021 Integrated Report. The information and data presented here cover the 2021 calendar year or reflect status at December 31, 2021, worldwide, unless otherwise indicated. Where not specified, data come from PMI estimates. Please also refer to 'This report at a glance' on page 5 of the 2021 Integrated Report 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 252. In the 2021 Integrated Report and in related communications, the terms “materiality,” “material,” and similar terms, when used in the context of economic, environmental, and social topics, 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.

 

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