Philip Morris ditches cigarettes for business sustainability. The Otopeni factory, a central role in the company’s strategy

The company chooses to focus both on the health impact of its products and on managing the company’s environmental impact, according to Philip Morris International CEO Jacek Olczak.

Philip Morris ditches cigarettes for business sustainability

In a presentation given at the CEPC Meeting (Chief Executives For Corporate Purpose), part of the Executive Investors Forum in New York, Jacek Olczak highlighted how Philip Morris International (PMI) integrated the sustainability strategy at the company level.

The way in which the health impact of Philip Morris products is addressed, by focusing resources on the development, scientific substantiation and responsible marketing of smokeless products, less harmful than smoking, with the aim of completely replacing cigarettes as soon as possible is one of the main pillars which contributed to the progress towards the achievement of the PMI objective and the transformation of the business.

Another facet of PMI’s efforts to strengthen business sustainability for the future is represented by the decarbonization plan and the company’s environmental impact management strategy.

“While science tells us that climate change is indisputable and inevitable, it also tells us that it is not too late to act”said Jacek Olczak.

“The transition to a low-carbon economy will require fundamental transformations of critical aspects of society, including how we grow our food, use land, transport goods and use energy for business purposes.

The great challenge of our time is to find a way to effectively align the public and private sectors to take essential action and move away from siled approaches and objectives.”

The Otopeni factory, a central role in the company’s strategy

The company announces that it has set commitments to address relevant risks related to climate change and build resilience, while seizing the opportunities offered by a low-carbon future.

PMI has established a science-based decarbonisation plan that covers its entire value chain. For direct emissions, PMI will achieve carbon neutrality in 2025 – five years earlier than originally stated – and for its entire value chain by 2040 – 10 years earlier than the original target, it said in a company release.

According to the same source, in Romania, the Philip Morris International factory in Otopeni occupies a central place in the company’s sustainability strategy. Thus, no waste generated by the factory’s production activities is dumped at the landfill. 70% of the waste is recycled externally and 30% is used for energy production.

In 2020, the factory received Alliance for Water Stewardship certification, the highest standard for sustainable water use. In the Otopeni factory, there are two wastewater treatment plants. Every year there are afforestation actions, as well as greening of some watercourses or recreational areas. Between 2016 and 2022, 44,000 saplings were planted.