As pressure on the country’s water resources continues to intensify, BAT Bangladesh is preparing for the next cycle of Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) surveillance assessments across all its AWS-certified manufacturing sites.
The assessments will be conducted at the Savar Factory, the Green Leaf Threshing (GLT) Plant in Kushtia and the re-drying plant (RDP) in Manikganj.
BAT Bangladesh is currently the first company in the country to have achieved AWS Core Certification across all manufacturing sites.
BAT Bangladesh’s AWS journey began in early 2022, when the Dhaka Factory and GLT Kushtia became the first facilities in Bangladesh to receive AWS Core Certification.
The certification of the Savar Factory in 2023 marked another milestone, completing a fully AWS-certified manufacturing footprint across the organisation.
Over the years, the company has invested in a range of water-efficiency and treatment infrastructure, including water and wastewater treatment plants (ETPs and WWTPs), sewage treatment plants (STPs), reverse osmosis (RO) systems and closed-loop water recycling processes.
As a result, the Savar Factory currently recycles approximately 50 per cent of its total water use, reducing dependence on freshwater abstraction while improving overall water efficiency.
Operating within a shared and increasingly water-stressed catchment, BAT Bangladesh has identified key water-related challenges, including groundwater depletion, surface water quality risks and rising demand from both industrial and community users.
To address these challenges, the company has implemented targeted water stewardship initiatives such as zero-discharge wastewater management, continuous water quality monitoring, closed-loop recycling systems and community water access programmes.
According to BAT Bangladesh, these initiatives are intended to reduce pressure on shared water resources, protect downstream water bodies and generate shared environmental and social value across the catchment, in line with national regulations and the AWS Standard.
Stakeholder engagement remains a central component of the company’s water stewardship approach.
Throughout its certification journey, BAT Bangladesh has worked with regulators, local communities, suppliers and other stakeholders to strengthen water governance, enhance transparency and promote responsible water use beyond factory boundaries.
As it enters the upcoming AWS surveillance assessments, and in line with its ongoing commitment to responsible water stewardship, BAT Bangladesh said that all its sites will implement and publicly disclose progress on water stewardship programmes aimed at achieving improvements in AWS water stewardship outcomes.
The company further confirmed that implementation will be aligned with, and supportive of, existing catchment sustainability plans, that stakeholders will be engaged openly and transparently, and that the necessary resources will be allocated to ensure full and effective implementation of the AWS Standard.
With continued investment, structured governance and measurable performance, the company said it aims to support both operational resilience and long-term water security in the communities and environments where it operates.
