The 2022 Index The Tobacco Transformation Index® aims to accelerate the reduction of harm caused by tobacco use. The Index ranks the world’s 15 largest tobacco companies on their relative progress toward harm reduction. The Index is designed to deliver on key goals of the Foundation: to drive the transformation of tobacco companies for the benefit of public health, and to inform the public about tobacco industry activities that have an influence on the achievement of a smoke-free world. The 2022 Index demonstrates that the transformation of the tobacco industry toward harm reduction continu ..read more

Introduction The Tobacco Transformation Index measures the extent to which nicotine and tobacco companies are making material progress toward reducing the consumption of high-risk products (HRPs) and contributing to tobacco harm reduction. Nicotine pouches are one of six products defined as “reduced-risk”[1]. As this blog post explores, nicotine pouches are a relatively niche category and not widely available but are developing rapidly in select geographies. The largest markets are currently in the US and other HMICs [2]. Seven of the 15 companies ranked by the Tobacco Transformat ..read more

We all know tobacco kills and smoking remains the biggest public health challenge facing the world today.   What most don’t know – or do not think about – is the devastating environmental and health impacts that farming tobacco has well before a cigarette is taken out of a pack and lit. There must be a holistic effort to end smoking that includes everyone from the farmers who grow tobacco to the consumers who smoke it. Tobacco farmers and the land it’s grown on are often overlooked in the conversation about ending smoking, but to achieve lasting change they must  be included in th ..read more

Authors: Romita Shah (Research Senior Manager, Foundation for a Smoke-Free World) Nikhil Goveas (Head of Special Projects, Koan Advisory Group) Vivan Sharan (Partner, Koan Advisory Group) As India continues to grapple with COVID-19, other insidious pandemics ravage millions of lives. Chief among them is tobacco use, which accounts for approximately one out of every ten deaths—over a million each year—in India.[1] Nearly 90 million Indian women aged 15 years and older report using tobacco. Less than two percent of them consume combustible tobacco (such as cigarettes and bidis), while ..read more

The first Tobacco Transformation Index found that a small group of tobacco companies made public commitments to harm reduction, but none had shifted their focus enough to ensure the accelerated decline of cigarettes and other high-risk products*. In a blog article published in September 2021, covering half-year results, we found that reduced-risk products* still formed a limited, albeit growing, share of total revenue for some of the leading tobacco manufacturers. Six months later, based on full year 2021 results, some of those companies continue to make progress. Others have stalled in the ..read more

In September 2021, Swedish Match AB announced that it plans to spin off its cigar business and become an entirely “smokefree” company. The spin-off is targeted for completion by the second half of 2022. As Table 1 illustrates, cigars currently represent 28% of Swedish Match’s revenue, with the remainder of its portfolio mostly comprising oral tobacco and nicotine products: snus, moist snuff, chewing tobacco, and non-tobacco nicotine pouches. Table 1: Swedish Match Revenue by Product Segment, Full Year 2020 (Company Report) Source: Swedish Match 2020 Annual Report, published March 2021, a ..read more

The first Tobacco Transformation Index found that a small group of tobacco companies made public commitments to harm reduction, but none have shifted their focus enough to ensure the accelerated decline of cigarettes and other high-risk products. A review of recently published first-half 2021 reports from six of the major tobacco companies indicates that reduced-risk products* continue to form a limited, albeit growing, share of total revenue. We assessed recently published first-half 2021 reports from Altria, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, Japan Tobacco, Philip Morris, and Swed ..read more

A Keynote Speech from the 2021 global tobacco and nicotine forum Download PDF We are amid a revolution in nicotine technology. Thanks to massive investments in research and development, patents are being filed at a dizzying pace and the ramifications of this IP are being felt in the real world. Already, 100 million people are using harm reduction products (HRPs). And projections suggest that, if these tools are more widely adopted, as many as three to four million lives could be saved annually by 2060. Indeed, some parts of the tobacco and nicotine industry are transforming in ways th ..read more

Improper government policies related to tobacco can lead to increased consumption among the poor, erosion of tax revenues, and, worryingly, a surge in criminal activity that can be difficult to control. Recent articles have exposed inherent conflicts regarding smoking in South Africa. We view the signals there as being explosive, seriously underplayed in the media, and in some cases misreported by researchers. Recall that the South African Government imposed a ban on the sale of all tobacco and vaping products between 27 March and 17 August 2020, as part of the COVID-19 lockdown. First, in ..read more

Before 2020, I knew very little about tobacco control. My knowledge did not go beyond what most people know – that cigarettes are bad for your health and could kill you. Subsequently, tobacco harm reduction was a foreign concept to me, although it made logical sense. I volunteered in Lesotho with the Peace Corps; the idea of harm reduction was often used when referring to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Although I did not know much about tobacco control, I was aware that harm reduction had been proven to work in other fields of public health. I joined the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World to help with ..read more