We don't just measure our performance in terms of financial success. We also track whether we measure up to the expectations that society has of us, as a major multinational company - and as a tobacco company.

To do so, we first have to find out and listen to what those expectations are. It seems obvious now, but we haven't always done this. We think we're getting better at it.

In 2001 we commissioned research to better understand how people view tobacco companies and what they expect of them; we also wanted to find out how our company in particular is measuring up to social expectations.

We asked people about their attitudes towards smoking, tobacco companies, corporate responsibility, and related topics. It probably won't surprise you to hear that tobacco companies got poor marks for trustworthiness and social responsibility. To us that's serious: we don't like to underperform; and we know we can do better than that.

We found that people expect us to take action in a number of areas. Chief among these were:

open discussion of the health effects of our products

the development of reduced risk products

preventing youth smoking

We put together an action plan that gives issues such as these top priority, and we're now following through: our efforts are producing practical results, in our daily operations, around the world. We know there's a lot more to do, but we're steadily working to close the gap between your expectations and our performance.

We take our corporate responsibility seriously. But we don't expect you to take our word for it (you told us we rate poorly on trustworthiness). To find out what we're doing, please explore this site.