British American Tobacco's social reporting "gobbledegook"

Writing in the UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph, Neil Collins takes British American Tobacco to task for its latest corporate social responsibility report. BAT, he wrote "has done its best to reconcile the fact that its products ruin the health of its customers with the need to follow the rules and look 'responsible'." In its latest social report BAT wrote that "we are finding that although our products can be seen as controversial, our work in social reporting and embedding our Business Principles are being accepted as meaningful. Stakeholders say we have made a good start and we hope that, over time, our commitment and sincerity will increasingly be recognised." Collins describes BAT's prose as "a magnificent piece of gobbledegook, combining as it does a mixture of the self-righteous and the self-satisfied."