Creating a clean image

Not surprisingly, tobacco companies don't like being portrayed as purveyors of poisons and killers of citizens.

Consequently, they try to boost their image by seeming to be socially responsible. A popular campaign is to clean up the environment -- a cause that seldom attracts sponsors.

Ironically, the tobacco industry is responsible for creating garbage like cigarette butts and packaging.

In Indonesia Sampoerna, now owned by the U.S. giant Philip Morris, has sponsored signs urging people not to litter. In Australia British American Tobacco (BAT) is behind the seemingly benign Butt Littering Trust.

This educates smokers in thoughtfully disposing of their fags and includes giving people little canisters they can use as personal ashtrays. (It ignores the fact that people who don't smoke don't produce butts.)

Activists say Australians flick away 18 billion nonbiodegradable cigarette butts every year. Not all are dead. Careless smokers start more than 4,500 bush and home fires.

The trust claims it is independent, but critics say it's wholly funded by BAT that has a representative on the board.

Another ploy is to fund educational institutions and scholarships. These are illegal in many countries when the company uses its own name or the name of a product.

So the Sampoerna Foundation, a separate entity from the cigarette company, but which gives the company the profile of a good corporate citizen, could not function under that name elsewhere because it would be seen as advertising.

(Duncan Graham)