Tobacco industry excluded from European climate standards

The European Commission, which has set up a Climate Transition Benchmark (CTB), an index taking into account minimum criteria intended to help investors wishing to engage in a strategy of decarbonising the economy, has decided to exclude any company involved in fossil fuels, tobacco, controversial weapons, or which violates the United Nations Global Compact.

The CTB index is an institutional response of the European Union aimed at encouraging the economic transition towards a more sustainable model. In particular, it aims to improve the transparency of companies, and to allow better comparability of the latter. The objective of the Climate Transition Benchmark is also to encourage a reallocation of capital towards investments more suited to current climate issues, and finally to prevent greenwashing strategies by companies, through false declarations on their real environmental impact.

The text, published on Friday 17 July, has two months to be reviewed by the European Parliament and the Council, failing which it will be officially adopted on that date.

Initially limited to companies involved in fossil fuels and companies with high greenhouse gas emissions, the exclusion of cigarette manufacturers from the CTB index is progress in the fight against tobacco. The industry's climate impact is indeed far from negligible: it is estimated that its total greenhouse gas equivalent emissions correspond to those of a country like Peru or Israel. This decision contributes more broadly to an effort to denormalize this industry, which should not be viewed as a sector of activity like any other, due to its human, health, environmental and economic toll.

©Tobacco Free Generation