Sustainability & compliance
What we can evidence, not what we can claim.
Leaf only moves through this platform under conditions we can evidence. The Group operates one integrated chain — farm, threshing, export — which means labour standards, environmental practice and traceability are enforced inside a single system rather than requested from third parties. This page sets out the standards we operate to, the mechanisms behind them, and what buyers, banks and auditors can request from us in diligence.
Labour & agricultural labour practices
Employment model. The Group employs its farm and processing workforce directly — a permanent core across agronomy, engineering, processing and administration, expanded by seasonal roles through transplanting, reaping, curing, grading and the threshing season.
Standards. All employment — direct and contracted — is structured to meet the agricultural labour practice requirements applied by the Group’s multinational customers, including alignment with the Sustainable Tobacco Programme (STP). That means a wage floor benchmarked above the Zambian statutory minimum, compliance with ILO core conventions, freedom of association, and independent auditability. Compliance is enforced through the same bale-level chain-of-custody system that underpins the Group’s commercial traceability: every bale traces to a field, a crew and a season.
Soyuz Tobacco Group prohibits child labour in every part of its operations and supply chain. No person under 15 is employed in any role. No person under 18 performs hazardous work, including any task involving green tobacco handling, agrochemicals, curing barns or machinery. Age is verified at hiring for all direct and seasonal workers, and the same prohibition is a binding term of every outgrower and labour-provider contract. Where a violation is found, the Group’s first obligation is to the child: remediation prioritises school enrolment and family income support, alongside contractual consequences for the responsible party. This policy is audited as part of the Group’s chain-of-custody system, and any customer or partner may verify compliance on request.
Traceability
Seed to carton, one system. Because the Group owns the chain end to end, custody is never transferred to an unaudited third party. Own-grown leaf is logged at the field; every bale entering the Lilayi line carries a unique lot identity linking it to origin, grower, grade and processing run; packed cartons carry the processing lot through to export documentation. The same record answers a buyer’s quality query and an auditor’s labour query.
Environment
Curing fuel — deforestation-free by design. Wood-fired curing is the tobacco sector’s largest environmental liability in Zambia. The Group’s policy is that curing demand is met from dedicated fast-growing fuelwood plantations established for the purpose, sized to the crop, so that no indigenous woodland is cut for curing — supplemented by high-efficiency barn designs that materially reduce fuel per kilogram of cured leaf.
Water stewardship. The Mkushi estate operates on secured year-round water rights from three on-farm dams holding 17.8 million m³ — irrigation drawn against a measured reserve (peak dry-season draw ~65% of storage) rather than seasonal rainfall or shared river abstraction. Centre-pivot irrigation delivers controlled application, and eleven consecutive years of per-pivot soil analysis (fertility, pH, nutrient movement) drive precision fertiliser programmes instead of blanket application.
Energy & logistics. The Lilayi plant is designed around the TAZARA rail corridor: leaf moves from the field edge to the plant and onward to port on rail, avoiding the road-freight legs — and their fuel burn — that fragmented competitors require. On-site solar generation is under evaluation for the plant’s daylight-heavy processing season.
Baseline before claims. The Group’s carbon approach follows the sequence measure → reduce → offset the residual: a GHG Protocol baseline (Scope 1–3) is commissioned before any reduction or neutrality claim is published. We make no carbon-neutrality claim until the baseline and funded reductions exist to support one.
Regulatory frame. Operations are conducted within Tobacco Board of Zambia requirements and ZEMA environmental clearance for the processing site.
Community
A fixed share, not a gesture. The Group commits 2% of consolidated net profit to a dedicated community-development foundation serving the districts around the Mkushi estate and the Lilayi plant. The commitment scales with the business, directed to education, healthcare and local enterprise.
Education first. The foundation’s planned flagship is the construction and operation of a primary school with water and sanitation facilities and teacher housing, serving the families of the Group’s workforce and the surrounding community. Beyond its social value, the school is the Group’s most direct answer to the sector’s most material labour risk: children in classrooms, parents in formal employment.
Local first. Recruitment, services and inputs are procured locally where quality and availability allow, and the planned Lilayi district programme extends to sports grounds, clinic support and, over time, vocational training facilities.
Certifications & audit readiness
Held today: ZEMA environmental clearance for the Lilayi site; operations registered with the Tobacco Board of Zambia; the signed agreement with the Zambia Development Agency on tax and duty incentives. Certificate and registration numbers are listed as they are issued.
In progress: alignment with the Sustainable Tobacco Programme and customer agricultural-labour-practice audit requirements ahead of the first processing season.
We list only certifications we hold. Logo slots stay empty until then.
Certifications & memberships
Logos appear here as certifications are confirmed. Copies available on request.