Carreras Limited - Social responsibility

Corporate Social Investment

In line with all British American Tobacco Group companies, Carreras carries out different activities in support of different social, cultural, environmental, and educational projects fulfilling its role of good corporate citizen in those communities in which it operates. Guided by a philosophy of responsibility, Carreras has been dedicated to integrating our social, environmental and economic concerns into our values, culture, decision making, strategy and operations in a transparent and accountable manner. Our corporate social responsibility programme has spanned the over 50 years of our operations in Jamaica and has evolved in recent years wherein our focus is mostly placed on empowering adults through our scholarship programme, the hallmark of Carreras’ social investments.  Through the programme, scholarships are awarded to students who are both academically gifted and in need of financial assistance at the tertiary level each year.

Empowering through Education

On an annual basis, Carreras awards more than 30 scholarships at various fields and levels of tertiary education in Jamaica, including Teachers’ College Scholarships, Community College Scholarships, National scholarships, which for the first time in the company’s history, is an offer of a full scholarship at the undergraduate level for the duration of the selected awardees’ studies and visual and performing arts scholarships.

Applicants must be Jamaican citizens, 18 years and older and have achieved at least a Baverage or 3.0 GPA in the previous academic year.

Support for Other Community Development Programmes

The Company also continues to give back to the communities in which it operates through its support for local community development projects and programmes geared at economic empowerment and adult education.

Youth Smoking Prevention

Smoking is a pleasure that entails risks. Therefore, we strongly believe that smoking is only for informed adults who are aware of these risks.

We fully support laws and regulations prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the legal minimum age. We also believe that enforcement and penalties for breaking such laws must be tough enough to discourage anybody from selling to minors.

We also know how important it is that our marketing practices are aligned with efforts to combat underage smoking. That is why we abide by British American Tobacco’s strict International Marketing Standards, which are globally consistent and demonstrate our commitment to marketing appropriately and only to informed adult tobacco consumers.

Locally, Carreras works with retailers - a group of key importance in the battle against underage smoking - in order to contribute towards youth smoking prevention.

Our approach

Our Youth Smoking Prevention campaign (YSP) has two main objectives: to prevent underage access to tobacco products, and to discourage smoking among this sector of the population. Our efforts are centred around three basic approaches:

• Retail access prevention – These programmes aim to block sales to the under age at the point of sale. They include proof-of-age schemes and retailer motivation on the importance of not selling cigarettes to minors.
• Activities outside the point-of-sale – Our markets also implement awareness campaigns for the general population, as well as educational campaigns directed at parents.
• Stakeholder engagement – We seek the support of stakeholders such as business associations, national and local governments, and non-governmental organisations, among others, to work together towards the prevention of underage smoking.

Our activities

The company’s policy is NOT to market its products to minors. Since 2008, the Company has implemented different campaigns at national level, directed at retailers, to prevent underage cigarette sales.

The initiative is the company’s specific response to the concerns of different sectors of society, and its purpose is to create awareness among retailers and consumers about the need to prevent underage smoking and adhere to legislation prohibiting tobacco sales to adolescents. We believe that youth smoking prevention is the responsibility of society as a whole, including the tobacco industry.

Nonetheless, it is important to highlight that underage smoking is a complex problem and there is no simple solution. However, by taking advantage of the experience and knowledge of all interested parties, including government, retailers, parents, teachers and youth themselves, we hope YSP programmes are accepted and successful.

What are we doing today?

From as early as 2002, British American Tobacco has implemented a global youth smoking prevention campaign, and since 2008, Carreras has implemented this global YSP campaig. Its aim is to stress that tobacco products must be marketed responsibly and that retailers must NOT sell tobacco products to anyone under 18.

The point-of-sale is where consumers purchase tobacco products. Therefore Carreras focuses its greatest efforts here in order to prevent underage access to these products.

The global campaign has been implemented in more than 124,000 points-of-sale in Central America and the Caribbean.

"Volunteers for" Programme

This programme involves company employees and their families, who donate their spare time to participate in voluntary work activities that benefit the community, using resources contributed by the company.

As its name indicates, employees participating in the “Volunteers for” programme voluntarily donate their spare time and labour to carry out different social welfare activities, while the company acts as facilitator donating the required economic resources, including materials, transport, and food, among others.