Author: Taco Tuinstra

  • White Coats, Fuzzy Facts?

    White Coats, Fuzzy Facts?

    Photo: Lisa F. Young

    Educating physicians on nicotine and the risk continuum.

    By Cheryl K. Olson

    In an earlier edition of Tobacco Reporter, I described the globally widespread, misplaced fears about the health risks of nicotine—and the critical need for credible messengers to counter those fears (see “Watch Your Mouth,” Tobacco Reporter, March 2022). People generally trust their doctors for health information. Smokers do too.1 The limited data available suggest smokers trust their doctors over other sources of information on e-cigarettes2 and that most patients using e-cigarettes would appreciate at least a brief discussion or handout.3

    Are physicians positioned to take advantage of that trust? Can they effectively guide patients who can’t or won’t quit nicotine toward lifesaving alternatives to smoking? Getting patients to stop smoking is top priority. Cigarettes are still the leading preventable cause of illness and death in the U.S. and many other nations. Smoking rates are stagnant among vulnerable populations, including those who are older, low-income or struggling with chronic physical or mental illness.4 Thanks in part to media-driven fears of vaping lung injuries and to e-cigarette flavor bans, cigarette sales are actually on the rise.5, 6

    Before doctors can help, they must be armed with accurate information and believe that taking action is necessary.

    Physicians are Confused About Nicotine

    One huge obstacle is a widespread physician perception that nicotine is dangerous. The first sentence in a 2021 survey report from the Journal of General Internal Medicine states, “Nicotine is responsible for the highly addictive nature of tobacco products, but most tobacco-caused disease is not directly caused by nicotine but rather by other chemicals present in tobacco or tobacco smoke.”7 Stunningly, four of five physicians in this U.S. survey strongly agreed (incorrectly!) that nicotine causes cancer, cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. There were only minor variations across medical specialties. Recent surveys across countries have similar findings.

    What effects might these beliefs have on physician willingness to recommend nicotine-replacement therapies to patients who smoke? And what about recreational nicotine products?

    Physicians Don’t Understand the Continuum of Risk

    Another barrier is ignorance about or fear of reduced-harm products that aren’t pharmaceuticals. I couldn’t locate any studies on what, if anything, doctors know about the full range of novel recreational nicotine products. However, a 2020 review from the University of Queensland8 found 45 qualitative and quantitative studies internationally that looked at what physicians believe and do regarding electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS). Doctors were aware of ENDS but far from experts in their health effects and use for smoking cessation. Most of what they knew came from media stories or patients. “This lack of knowledge and feeling of being ‘uninformed’ was reported consistently by [healthcare professionals] across and within studies.”

    The latest and largest U.S. study of what doctors say to patients about vaping appeared in the April 2022 issue of JAMA Network Open.9 The Rutgers University authors surveyed a national cross-section of 2,058 board-certified physicians. The conclusion? “More than half of the physicians believed that all tobacco products are equally harmful, and this belief was associated with lower rates of recommending e-cigarettes.” The authors argue that “it is critical to address physician nicotine misperceptions and to correct misperceptions regarding the relative harm of various tobacco products,” as the “FDA authorization process” introduces more modified-risk products.

    What Might Start to Open Minds?

    I asked a young physician friend (a third-year resident at Virginia Commonwealth University) what he and his fellow doctors would want to know about reduced-harm nicotine products that their patients might be using. He immediately mentioned wanting to see results from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on “products that will help patients quit harmful tobacco products but also data regarding health outcomes. For example, what are the rates of lung cancer in a patient who smokes cigarettes for 10 years versus someone who vapes for 10 years?”

    This is the sort of response we expect and was consistent with the JAMA Network Open survey findings. But can data alone change beliefs?

    An earlier study from the Rutgers researchers involving structured interviews with doctors gives reason for doubt.10 Most doctors they talked to were at least neutral about attempts to switch to e-cigarettes for patients who had failed with traditional smoking cessation methods. But five of the 35 doctors were adamantly opposed; they would not recommend vaping to patients even if future RCTs found e-cigarettes to be equal or superior to other quit methods. One oncologist said, “Based on what I’ve heard and read about them, I don’t think so. It seems like they’re actually, like I said, kind of dangerous.”

    A careful read suggests that physicians who believed e-cigarettes could be effective switching tools—about half of those interviewed—were so persuaded by a combination of stories and data. Patients, friends or family members had cut down or quit cigarettes through vaping. And, perhaps sensitized to the issue by these stories, the doctors recalled seeing one or more studies that backed up their personal observations. Interestingly, 11 of the doctors who doubted e-cigarette effectiveness cited the hand-to-mouth behavior similarities to smoking as a negative rather than a positive for switching. This suggests they don’t know smokers.

    Physician Harm Reduction

    Sudhanshu Patwardhan

    During his postdoctoral training as a primary care physician, Sudhanshu Patwardhan grew increasingly concerned about the ineffectiveness of the advice and treatments given to patients who smoked combustible cigarettes. Since then, he’s focused his clinical and research career on harm reduction for addicted smokers. He’s currently based in Great Britain, where he’s the director of the Centre for Health Research and Education.

    Patwardhan has researched physicians and nicotine in the U.K., Sweden, Greece and India. For the past year, he and I have been talking about the clinical and public policy challenges that come with shifting toward a harm reduction approach to smoking cessation.

    “Consistently, between 65 [percent and] 80 percent of surveyed physicians across all these countries harbor misperceptions about nicotine,” he said. “It’s no wonder that, universally, ‘Why replace one addiction with another?’ is one of the commonest attitudes [among physicians] for nicotine-replacement therapy for tobacco cessation using a harm reduction approach.

    “Doctors forget that in addition to its long-term effects, inhaling the smoke from burning tobacco induces the breakdown of many drugs, thus making those treatments ineffective. Many psychiatrists I interact with admit to simply increasing the dose of the administered medications to compensate for the loss of effectiveness due to smoke-induced breakdown but don’t offer cessation support simultaneously. This, of course, leads to higher side effects and poorer patient outcomes—all because physicians are not sensitized to and empowered about tobacco cessation and harm reduction.

    “Most freshly minted doctors would know how to recognize the most esoteric heart murmur but have no practical experience in the basics of behavioral intervention or the role of medications for tobacco cessations. Pharmacology and clinical medicine barely touch on nicotine-replacement therapy and give no clues to trainee doctors on what to prescribe, for how long and how to manage cravings and withdrawal symptoms effectively. Most noncommunicable diseases have tobacco use as a risk factor. Yet doctors simply do not address it along with the presenting complaint.

    “Our center’s strategy focuses on the root of the issue: We’re developing and conducting peer-based education of healthcare providers in a safe and nonjudgmental environment. Our approach and materials are country specific. For example, in the U.K., e-cigarettes are a part of the suite of potential harm reduction tools offered by the National Health Service. In India, however, e-cigarettes are currently banned and not licensed for smoking cessation. There, we focus on approved approaches, such as nicotine-replacement therapy, bupropion and varenicline.”

    “We need to start overhauling the medical education curriculum in this area. We’re conducting pilot programs at some medical schools with exciting results and will publish those data. Practicing physicians also need training to increase their effectiveness. Finally, scaling up of nicotine education for healthcare providers can be a significant challenge, especially for countries as wide as the U.S. or as populated as India. Digital tech tools, such as cessation apps, short media presentations, including online videos and smart print campaigns designed for social media, can all help.”–C.K.O.

    References

    1 Nelms E et al. Trust in physicians among rural Medicaid-enrolled smokers. Journal of Rural Health, 2014: 30(2), 214–220. doi:10.1111/jrh.12046.

    2 Wackowski OA et al. Smokers’ sources of e-cigarette awareness and risk information. Preventive Medicine Reports, 2015: 906–910, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2015.10.006.

    3 Doescher MP et al. Patient perspectives on discussions of electronic cigarettes in primary care. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 2018, doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2018.01.170206.

    4 Zhu S-H et al. Smoking prevalence in Medicaid has been declining at a negligible rate. PLoS One, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178279.

    5 Xu Y et al. The impact of banning electronic nicotine-delivery systems on combustible cigarette sales: Evidence from U.S. state-level policies. Value in Health, 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.jval.2021.12.006.

    6 Federal Trade Commission. FTC report finds annual cigarette sales increased for the first time in 20 years. October 2021. www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-report-finds-annual-cigarette-sales-increased-first-time-20-years.

    7 Steinberg MB et al. Nicotine risk perceptions among U.S. physicians. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2020, doi: 10.1007/s11606-020-06172-8.

    8 Erku DA et al. Beliefs and self-reported practices of healthcare professionals regarding electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS): a mixed-methods systematic review and synthesis. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntz046.

    9 Delnevo CD et al. Communication between U.S. physicians and patients regarding electronic cigarette use. JAMA Network Open, 2022, doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.6692.

    10 Singh B et al. Knowledge, recommendation and beliefs of e-cigarettes among physicians involved in tobacco cessation: A qualitative study. Preventive Medicine Reports, 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2017.07.012.

    Cheryl K. Olson is a California-based public health researcher who specializes in behavioral health issues and consults on tobacco product behaviors via McKinney Regulatory Science Associates. She spent 15 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School.
  • Combating Waste

    Combating Waste

    Photo: Timothy Donahue

    ALD Group is designing products that will help combat the growing concerns surrounding e-cigarette waste.

    By Timothy S. Donahue

    Disposable e-cigarettes produce a lot of waste. Many of today’s most popular vaping products are designed to be discarded after one use. While less wasteful than disposables, single-use plastic pod products also generate a lot of waste as pods can’t be recycled due to the residues left over from e-liquids. As the vaping industry converts more combustible cigarette smokers, vapor manufacturers are seeking to develop products that are less impactful on the environment.

    ALD Group, a leading China-based e-cigarette manufacturer, said that many industries are also facing new environmental regulatory requirements in some markets and that consumers are demanding more sustainable products. Business owners are responding by investing more in corporate social responsibility programs and the R&D required to create more environmentally friendly products. However, those goals come with challenges.

    One of the issues ALD faced in the development of its new disposable products was that traditional recycling programs for vaping products were time-consuming, inefficient and costly. Manufacturers struggled to keep retailers and consumers actively participating in recycling programs, such as e-waste drop-off sites. ALD wanted to develop an eco-friendly vape solution that satisfied consumers and used biodegradable and recyclable materials. The company wanted to redefine vaping systems to align with eco-friendly trends.

    ALD Group founder and President Eric Ding told Tobacco Reporter that ALD’s vision is inseparable from society and the environment. Innovation is part of ALD’s mission, and with social responsibility as a core principle, its new disposable product is “at the very heart” of ALD, according to Ding.

    “Before the development of this product, we always made a concerted effort in promoting environmental protection and awareness, including the implementation of power-saving management systems, regular environmental protection activities and so on,” Ding said. “While we are always developing products in response to challenges being confronted in the global market, ALD balances this with paying close attention to the reminders and warnings from the natural environment. It is ALD’s view that the uncontrolled production and disposal of single-use products that contain plastics, chemicals, batteries, etc., is ecologically damaging and cannot be sustained.”

    The latest ALD vaporizer is equipped with the company’s innovative iCot coil technology, which is the subject of more than 60 patent applications. Currently named the “Eco-friendly, Biodegradable Vape Solution” (EBVS), the new device was created in response to customer and market demand. Last year, numerous international tobacco customers approached ALD with requests to make e-cigarettes more environmentally friendly, ALD said in a statement.

    “Additionally, our insights are that reducing the carbon footprint of products will become a mainstream demand over the next two [years] to three years,” the statement said. “There are existing policies which point to these developments, such as requirements for the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, packaging regulations in Europe and so on.” The EBVS device was created through the “redefinition of materials, structure and appearance.” There were also several breakthroughs in heat resistance, endurance, chemical resistance and other properties. However, the company is not yet sharing many of these innovations until after the product goes to market.

    “The key focus of the development process was improvement of product structure and the evaluation of the materials’ properties. Following this step, there was the inspection and evaluation of the finished product’s performance and research on the safety of the aerosol. The project has so far gone through two years of development.”

    The ALD eco-friendly vape solution’s plastic components use an innovative combination of biodegradable raw materials that obtained the German DIN CERTO biodegradable certification. The shell of the device and the structural parts don’t come into contact with e-liquid and are all made of biodegradable materials.

    “The innovative factor is that our extensive research showed that in the e-cigarette sector, there was currently no ready-made solution for the application of biodegradable materials. During development, we screened dozens of materials, repeatedly verified product performance and, finally, determined the seven best mix[es] of materials,” ALD stated. “Our processes included the verification of material strength, chemical resistance, extractability and degradability.

    “Additionally, this product can be easily disassembled with special tools. We have achieved this through an innovative structural design. If the product is recycled, the battery and electronic parts can be recovered easily because of the easy-to-disassemble structure. Also, 100 percent of its structural parts (i.e., plastic parts, which amount to 23 percent of the product’s total weight) are degradable after disassembly. If the product is not recycled, the plastic parts are still degradable naturally in the landfill.”

    The EBVS product will be available in all ALD markets, according to ALD. The Engineering Validation and Testing evaluation was completed in mid-2021, and the shelf life and biodegradability testing are expected to be completed in mid-2022. The launch date for ALD’s new product is planned for mid-2023.

    Timothy Donahue is the assistant editor of Tobacco Reporter. Since joining our team in January 2013, he has become not only an expert on the traditional tobacco business but also a well-respected voice in the rapidly developing vapor industry. Tim spends much of his time on the road, attending conferences and interviewing industry representatives. His networking skills, work ethic and quick mind are valuable assets to our diverse audience.
  • The Virtuous Loop

    The Virtuous Loop

    Illustration: Hauni

    Reducing waste and saving energy in manufacturing boosts revenues, improves customer satisfaction and reduces environmental damage.

    By George Gay

    Filter cigarettes and the hinge-lid packs in which, on many markets, most cigarettes are sold have been available in similar forms for 60 years to 70 years, and, during that time, their manufacture has been guided by increasingly specialized materials suppliers, brand owners and machinery builders that have become environmentally aware, commercially astute and technically advanced. So, on being asked to write a story looking at what tobacco machinery suppliers are doing to reduce the usage of energy and the creation of waste during the operation of their machines by tobacco manufacturers, my first thought was that perhaps, after so many years of development, there wasn’t much more that could be achieved.

    I needn’t have been concerned. While the central objects of the exercise, the cigarette and pack, remain, to the uninitiated at least, much the same, the focus and interests of machinery suppliers have broadened to take in everything from how their employees get from home to work through production materials to the new industrial revolution. There is even a focus by one company on the efficiencies of factories that might or might not use its machinery.

    Aiger recently installed a 350 MW solar power system on the roof of a new manufacturing bay. (Photo: Aiger)

    Nurturing a Mindset

    But what about the bit concerning how your employees get from home to work? How does that fit into the grand scheme of things? I hear you ask. Well, according to Courtland Macduff, Aiger’s sales director for Asia, this has to do with the idea that if you are going to improve the operational efficiencies of the equipment you offer in respect of such things as energy usage and waste, you need to build such thinking into the ethos of the company. Aiger had set up, for instance, a carpool system that allows its employees to get to work using less gasoline and creating fewer carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than they would if they all traveled alone. Four years ago, the company introduced efficient waste management systems to deal with everything from machining waste to general consumables. And, on a larger scale, it recently installed a 350 MW solar power system on the roof of a new manufacturing bay, allowing it to function as a smart factory in which heating and lighting are based on zone scheduling, a system that has provided for a 20 percent saving in energy costs.

    As Macduff said during an email exchange, saving energy and reducing waste worked by example, so now, every design engineer was focused on smart solutions aimed at providing better machine performance because the faster a manufacturer was able to operate with the highest uptime, the less waste was generated. But this had to involve a joint effort. Machinery manufacturers could have only a limited impact on operational waste if factories didn’t maintain high efficiencies by optimizing their procedures and materials.

    But no operation could be perfect, so, at the same time, Aiger machinery “digested” rejects as far as possible by recycling tobacco shorts and reclaiming the tobacco. End-of-bobbin machine production wastage had been reduced as had glue application.

    In reducing energy usage, designers were, for instance, working on the optimization of drive selections and had already minimized the power consumption of heating elements by using a higher level of temperature control and new insulation materials to protect the areas heated to high temperatures, which was one of the major power drains. At the same time, designers were constantly looking to incorporate new technologies.

    In this regard, Macduff made the interesting comment that while new technologies were welcome, they came at a price, so they had to be introduced at the right time and for the right reasons. Tobacco companies would not pay more simply to have a machine that used less energy. Output mattered at the end of the day, and high efficiency was not negotiable.

    There was something of a trade-off to be made here. While modern machinery was generally faster and more reliable and consistently produced better quality products than was the case in the past, such improvements did not necessarily lend themselves to energy savings because the newer machinery used more controls, more automation and more drives.

    But there are other areas where savings of one type or another can be made, often working in conjunction with materials suppliers and tobacco manufacturers. Factory floor layouts could be optimized, said Macduff; optical fibers could replace cables; new, harder-wearing materials could ensure that parts had longer lives; and the 3D printing of parts at customer sites could cut the impact of transporting such materials. Coreless bobbins could be introduced, filters and packaging materials that are more environmentally friendly could be brought in and the use of plastics could be reduced in respect of packaging materials for tobacco products and even machinery exports.

    Finally, Macduff said Aiger was one of the leaders in machinery manufacturing flexibility, and the modular concepts engineered into its machinery helped to keep efficiencies high in the face of brand changes, which always created a degree of startup waste.

    Montrade now offers technology to help tobacco companies to manufacture plastic-free filters. (Photo: Montrade)

    Win, Win, Win

    Meanwhile, Montrade’s senior sales manager, Emanuele Massari, said his company’s machines were designed so as to map product flow because the focus was on maximizing product quality while minimizing material consumption and waste. The company had a division dedicated to the research and development of sensor and process control systems that, once integrated into its machines or even those of other companies, enhanced productivity optimally. “It is an essential step of the migration toward industry 4.0,” he said- in what I took to be a reference to the sorts of new processes that focus on interconnectivity, automation and machine learning.

    Artificial intelligence provided all Montrade’s sensors with auto-learning skills, so systems improved themselves autonomously, he said. And such autonomous maintenance initiatives helped provide for an increase in machinery MTBFs (mean time between failures), which, in turn, led to “a righteous path of real sustainability.” “This synergy allows us to optimize and reduce the material and energy consumption and the waste of spare parts,” said Massari.

    Sustainability was said to be one of the main drivers at Montrade because working to reduce waste and save energy created what Massari described as a “win-win-win virtuous loop.” The first win was that customers could use Montrade’s equipment to manufacture more high-quality products while spending less, thus increasing their revenues and consumer satisfaction. The second win saw Montrade’s business boosted because its customers were satisfied. And the third win meant that the environment and, consequently, the global community profited from the reduced impact of the tobacco industry.

    Massari said that his company’s machines were designed to constantly monitor the consumption of utilities with an eye on reducing usage. The levels of electrical consumption and compressed airflow rates, etc., were always available to view on human-machine interfaces, which was a standard feature not an optional one.

    Another issue on which Montrade had been focusing its sustainability efforts concerned the materials used on its machines. The company collaborated closely with its customers and with materials suppliers to rethink the product as more eco-friendly and more fit for the final consumer. Recent examples of this approach could be seen in the company’s machines for producing biodegradable cigarette filters and paper tubes. A unique crimping technology allowed conventional acetate filters to be replaced with paper ones while reducing by about 20 percent the paper consumption typical of other machines available on the market.

    As well as offering new filter-making equipment, Montrade also revamps older equipment to produce eco-friendly products. “For instance, we offer our paper crimper in a free-standing configuration to retrofit existing filter makers to convert them to make plastic-free filters,” said Massari. “In the same way, we have also recently developed a wide range of conversion kits for existing packing machines to reduce the wrapping materials and/or replace them with plastic-free ones.”

    The Holistic View

    Another way of looking at reducing waste is to examine just tobacco waste but over complete operations. Marco Castro, global head of Hauni Advanced Services (formerly Hauni Consulting), said that while the whole tobacco industry was currently working on reducing waste, his division had, in July 2020, set itself the ambitious challenge of approaching this objective in a different way. And, in doing so, it had pioneered a completely original approach, tobacco waste prevention (TWP), by developing an integrated methodology for preventing waste at critical points in green leaf threshing plants (GLTs) and during primary processing and secondary manufacture.

    Interestingly, TWP can be applied to all production facilities regardless of the machine base. “Our approach is strictly based on the existing conditions of our customers’ brands,” said Castro in announcing the initiative. “This enables them to prevent waste quickly and successfully, maintaining these gains over the long term.”

    TWP is said to offer immediate, measurable improvements, and figures said to have been achieved already in customer projects are impressive: The reduction of waste generation in GLT processes is up to 50 percent, in the primary it’s up to 70 percent and in the secondary up to 60 percent.

    “The first step is to quantify the potential for waste prevention at the customer’s site,” said Castro. “This is the basis on which we implement our TWP methodology, which aims to achieve the physical limits for waste prevention for the respective combination of blends, brands and equipment as quickly as possible.”

    The approaches adopted as part of TWP are said not only to prevent waste but also to reduce production complexity and technical costs by standardizing blend/brand and equipment combinations where they are relevant to waste.

    The starting point for every TWP project is the manufacturer’s own production facility. “This means that we not only strictly consider their specific blends and brands but also implement the TWP specifically for their existing production equipment,” said Castro. “No investments in equipment are necessary to achieve this new, optimized level of waste and costs—at least initially. Of course, on request, we can advise our customers on the potential of machine upgrades or other changes to their equipment while focusing on waste prevention.”

    What might well appeal to tobacco manufacturers is that the price of implementing TWP is performance-based, something that Hauni says underlines its belief in its new service. “We are certain that we can deliver the savings we promise our customers after quantifying the waste situation,” said Castro. “That is why payment for this service is performance-based. If we achieve less than we promise, the price is reduced. If the improvement falls below a set level, our clients pay nothing.”

    George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.
  • Great Expectations

    Great Expectations

    Photos: Cavendish Lloyd

    Cavendish Lloyd has started growing low-nicotine flue-cured tobacco in Zimbabwe for shisha.

    By George Gay

    Although it’s unfashionable to say so, I believe there is something most appealing about some aspects of tobacco and the tobacco business, not least because they are naturally part of the Slow Movement. Indeed, they were part of that movement long before it came into existence in the mid-1980s with the realization that there was something to be gained in taking the time to savor certain things—and something being lost in doing things too quickly.

    For instance, though many welcome efficiencies have been introduced to the leaf tobacco business over the years, it always had about it, and still has, a comfortingly unhurried air. I mean, there is, after all, no point in a farmer, at the start of the growing season, standing over her seedlings and shouting, “ready, steady, grow!” And who in their right mind would want to walk quickly through a tobacco warehouse when he could dawdle and savor the aroma?

    Of course, not all aspects of the tobacco business are slow, nor should they be. There is a lot to be said for introducing the sorts of machinery updates and general processing efficiencies and manufacturing efficiencies covered in another story in this issue (see “The Virtuous Loop,” page 36). But, at the same time, there are other aspects of the business that have contraventions of the tenets of the Slow Movement that are to its detriment. I find it sad, for instance, to see smokers racing through their cigarettes as they stand in the cold outside pubs and offices.

    Low-nicotine Virginia flue-cured tobacco has the propensity to absorb the high levels of molasses and flavors that Shisha manufacturers require.

    Unseen Advantage

    Luckily, however, there is a type of smoking that still lends itself to savoring the moment, which comprises mainly the enjoyment of products such as fine cigars, pipes and shisha. Shisha smoking, especially, tends to be part of a relaxed social occasion, and perhaps that is why its appeal is increasing at a time when that of other combustible tobacco products is not.

    And that increase in appeal is occurring, I suspect, without too many shisha smokers realizing there is an unseen advantage in their choice of product, the tobacco component of which could have been grown in a more environmentally friendly way than that of many other tobaccos. Indeed, I, too, didn’t know of this potential environmental advantage until I corresponded recently on the subject of low-nicotine Virginia flue-cured tobacco (LNFCT) with Koen Monkau, the president of Cavendish Lloyd, and Frank Magama, the head of the Plant Breeding Division of the Tobacco Research Board’s (TRB) Kutsaga Research Station in Harare, Zimbabwe.

    Monkau told me his company was experimenting in Zimbabwe with growing LNFCT for use in shisha products, and I assumed the aim of using such tobacco was to try to wean people off smoking as is being attempted in the U.S. in the case of cigarettes. But Monkau explained that, in general, shisha manufacturers required LNFCT (less than 1 percent nicotine) mainly because of its physical characteristics. This style of leaf was pale, white-yellow and very thin, he said, and it had the propensity to absorb the high levels of molasses and flavors that needed to be added to it.

    But this style of leaf also has a number of advantages when it comes to the environment and the cost of producing it, partly because it is closer grown than is standard flue-cured tobacco and partly because of a major reduction in the need for chemical applications. Magama told me it was expected that LNFCT would have lower costs of production with significant savings being made from reductions in the use of fertilizer and the cutting out altogether of systemic and contact suckercide applications. Labor savings would be made because topping would not be required, something that normally involved making several rounds of a crop. And energy and time savings would be made on curing the resultant thinner and smaller leaves.

    At the time of this writing, Cavendish Lloyd was in the process of grading its first trial crop of LNFCT.

    Growing Trials

    Cavendish Lloyd was established in 2011 by Monkau, who has been involved in tobacco for more than 25 years, and his wife, Jiayu Wang, who is vice president of the company. The company’s largest operation in respect of staff numbers is to be found in Zimbabwe, but it operates in the Far East, the Middle East and Europe as well as in other parts of Africa. Overall, it has about 100 employees. It is active throughout the tobacco chain, from the growing of tobacco to the marketing and distribution of cigarettes, though, currently, it does not directly operate any leaf processing or tobacco manufacturing facilities—or, I should point out, offer Cavendish tobacco. It is the exclusive distributor of KT&G products in Zimbabwe.

    Given the company’s close association with Zimbabwe, and the country’s favorable climatic and soil conditions, it is not surprising that this is where Monkau is currently conducting, in conjunction with Magama’s team, LNFCT growing trials and where he intends to expand into larger scale production during the next season, which will run from later this year into next year. And it is not surprising, either, that Magama shares this enthusiasm for Zimbabwe. He told me in an email exchange that he believed there was a combination of factors that made Zimbabwe a suitable country for growing LNFCT, including its resilient grower base, the presence of supportive merchants, a long tradition of growing the crop, and soils that were inherently low in nitrogen, which allowed growers to have good control of plant nutrition when producing LNFCT.

    Asked whether LNFCT varieties were more or less difficult to grow than traditional varieties, Magama said that both required the same attention to detail and good management, though, in the case of LNFCT, some key agronomic practices had to be modified, owing, for example, to the previously mentioned need for less fertilizer and the absence of topping. He added that there was so far no clear evidence about whether it was better to grow LNFCT in the dry lands or as irrigated crops, but he said it was important to note that excessive irrigation or precipitation limited growth and nicotine accumulation through leaching of nitrogen while excessively dry conditions resulted in high nicotine accumulation. Much of the year-to-year variation in nicotine content in a variety was due to differences in rainfall, with everything else being equal.

    At the time of writing, Cavendish Lloyd was in the process of grading its first trial crop of LNFCT, which was grown during the 2021–2022 season by a farmer operating near Marondera, Mashonaland East, and with the help of the Kutsaga team. But it has ambitions to quickly increase its production of LNFCT in Zimbabwe, and it aims, eventually, to become a major player in LNFCT by expanding production into Zambia, Malawi and South Africa.

    Koen Monkau (left) created Cavendish Lloyd in 2011.

    Exponential Growth

    Monkau believes that central and southern Africa can provide significant volumes of LNFCT at competitive prices. And, importantly, having done his research, he believes there is a ready market for such tobaccos. “Within the tobacco market at large, there are some segments that are in decline or stable and other segments that are growing fast,” he told me in an email exchange. “The shisha market is definitely in the last category, with even exponential growth expected in the next few years.”

    Given such opportunities come to fruition, it seems likely that other players will be attracted to growing LNFCT in Zimbabwe, a fact Monkau hinted at when he made the point that establishing an LNFCT production industry in Zimbabwe would be an important step in helping to expand and diversify the country’s tobacco client portfolio.

    Currently, no other companies are growing low-nicotine varieties in Zimbabwe or taking part in production trials. However, it seems that interest is growing. Magama told me the TRB had been involved with low-nicotine trials for the past five years, working with many merchants with different objectives and end-use applications. And the board had been selected, he said, to be part of a three-year global study on low-nicotine tobacco being coordinated by a taskforce of the Cooperation Centre for Scientific Research Relative to Tobacco.

    The plant breeding division of the TRB plays a vital role in low-nicotine trials, conducting research and making available where appropriate the results of that research. The division also makes recommendations when called upon to do so by the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) and other stakeholders. Again, such cooperation is vital because the TIMB is responsible for authorizing the growing in Zimbabwe of any tobacco variety, and it is the TRB that carries out value for cultivation and use studies, and, on the basis of those studies, recommends or not the variety in question.

    Furthermore, two other government departments, the Seed Services Institute and the Plant Quarantine Services Institute, are involved in ensuring only suitable varieties are grown by processing seed permits and ensuring all phytosanitary issues from the country of origin are addressed before seed importation is made.

    It might seem from the above that obtaining permission for experimenting with new varieties would be complex, but, for instance, authorization for the seed used for Cavendish Lloyd’s trials was processed for the company by the TRB.

    The seed in question was obtained from a company based in Europe that has long cooperated with Zimbabwe and is a stable source of supply. But, in any case, Magama said that, depending on the results of the trial, it was possible seed could be sourced elsewhere if it were necessary to address limitations the original seed might have. Further, local breeding efforts could be activated should there be a business case for this nascent tobacco type, he added.

    Finally, without wishing to interrupt the Slow Movement that inevitably controls the scheduling of research and trials, I need to point out that Monkau intends to introduce some allegro con brio into his enterprise. “We plan to grow 1 million kg green from season 2022–2023,” he said. “This might seem ambitious, but we have spent a lot of time on research and are confident we can make it.”

    George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.
  • An Elegant Solution

    An Elegant Solution

    Illustration: Airco Processing Technology

    A new technology allows cigarette manufacturers to use CO2 from their steam boilers for tobacco expansion.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    Besides being an unhealthy choice, cigarettes and their production have a substantial impact on the environment. A study published by Imperial College London in 2018 found that the cultivation and processing of tobacco to make the 6 trillion cigarettes manufactured worldwide in 2014 generated 84 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—approximately 0.2 percent of the global total. CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities and thus a major contributor to climate change.

    Leading cigarette manufacturers have sustainability programs in place to reduce their carbon footprint throughout the supply chain. A new, improved technology developed by Airco DIET’s subsidiary Airco Process Technology (APT) allows them to optimize their production processes further.

    Founded in 2020, APT offers solutions for carbon capture and biogas upgrading, thereby benefiting from its parent company’s long-standing experience as a manufacturer of advanced process plants. The Danish company is best known for its Dry Ice Expanded Tobacco (DIET) facilities, of which the company has installed more than one hundred worldwide.

    Keld Laigaard

    “The diversification with Airco Process Technology makes a lot of sense for Airco DIET as we have worked with large international projects for more than 35 years,” says Keld M. P. Laigaard, sales director at Airco DIET. “And all these projects have involved our DIET plants, which includes working with pressurized and liquid CO2. The Airco employees are all highly skilled in working with CO2 and executing large-scale international projects, and we have been successful in transferring these unique abilities into the new company.”

    Generating heat and power is essential for many industrial processes. Primary processing represents about 80 percent of the total energy consumption of cigarette production, leading to a correspondingly high level of emissions. APT’s carbon capture technology enables manufacturing sites to recover and purify the CO2 before it enters the atmosphere.

    Capturing CO2 from flue gas (a mixture of gases produced by the burning of fuel or other materials in power stations and industrial plants in which the amount of CO2 is limited) requires a thermal-driven process. Several technologies are currently available; they differ in the amounts of heat required to pick up CO2. APT focuses on solutions that require the lowest possible heat input. Its technologies can be applied to high CO2 concentration sources in which CO2 content exceeds 95 percent, such as biogas, fermentation and certain chemical and petrochemical waste streams. It is also apt for low-concentration sources with a CO2 concentration of more than 3 percent, which includes power stack gas, waste incineration, engines, turbines and similar types of waste streams.

    From Buyer to Self-Supplier

    “While mostly working outside the tobacco industry, Airco Process Technology also assists Airco DIET’s customers with its technologies,” Laigaard points out. “Our customers are in a unique position as they all have steam boilers that are emitting CO2 while they also use CO2 in the DIET process. APT is now able to provide CO2 capture plants that will extract the CO2 from the boiler exhaust, clean and then liquify the CO2 for usage in the DIET plant.”

    At present, most tobacco factories with DIET plants purchase their CO2 from a third-party source while they emit CO2 on the same property. DIET plants usually run 24/7. In the summertime, though, CO2 supply can be scarce, and most manufacturing sites only have CO2 storage tanks that last for two days or three days.

    By capturing their own CO2, the factories will become self-reliant and thereby secure the main utility needed in DIET plants. “Being independent becomes more and more important as the world experiences supply chain problems together with a higher global use of CO2 in connection with many of the new green fuels,” states Laigaard. “I’m sure this increased CO2 usage will lead to shortages in various regions.”

    In addition, the factory’s carbon footprint will be lowered. The captured CO2 will be made 100 percent food grade and equal to what is presently supplied by high-quality CO2 suppliers, Laigaard says.

    APT also upgrades biogas plants to make them operate more efficiently. The company has developed water-based and amine-based biogas technologies that, besides capturing the biogas, convert the biogas not only into natural gas grid specification methane but also into high-value products such as liquid bio methane and bio-CO2. APT has also filed a patent application for a liquefaction pretreatment polisher designed for trace CO2 removal from biomethane, also known as deep CO2 removal.

    Europe and the U.S. are the most promising markets for APT, according to Laigaard. “Airco Process Technology has only been online for two years but has already overtaken Airco DIET in size—and it continues to grow at an unprecedented rate.” 

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • Current Thinking

    Current Thinking

    Matt Holman (left) and Mike Ligon during TMA’s 103d annual meeting

    Matt Holman discusses the CTP Office of Science’s aspirations along with the challenges to achieving them.

    By Timothy S. Donahue

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been busy. Before it had the chance to finish the first round of premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) reviews, the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) was charged with also regulating all synthetic and other nontobacco-derived nicotine products. Manufacturers must submit PMTAs for the newly regulated products by May 14, 2022.

    During the 103rd annual meeting of Tobacco Reporter’s parent company, TMA, Mike Ligon, TMA board chair, and Matt Holman, director of the FDA CTP’s Office of Science (OS), discussed the regulatory agency’s challenges and lessons learned in regulating electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) and other novel tobacco products. It was the first time Holman had spoken publicly since Congress granted the FDA the authority to regulate synthetic products, and Ligon emphasized that the audience was eager to hear Holman answer questions.

    Holman made clear from the beginning that he heard during the conference that the FDA needs to do a better job with consistency, transparency and predictability. “That’s something I’ve strived to make sure we do as office director, but I’m hearing we’re not doing as good a job as we need to,” said Holman. “That’s something I’m certainly taking back to my colleagues to figure out … I think the point I’ve heard the most along those lines was just the timing and not knowing what the timing would be [for] taking action on applications. We need to do a better job of that.”

    After a federal judge ordered the FDA to complete a majority of PMTA reviews by Sept. 9, 2021—one year after the deadline for PMTA submissions—Holman said the review process was still new and that it was a challenge to build the programs necessary to complete reviews on time. He said that staffing the agency, for example, was a giant undertaking. “Something folks outside the agency don’t think about all that much is staffing levels. When I took over this position, we had something around 325 staff members that were in the office,” Holman explained. “And now, five years later, we have about 575-ish. Any of you who have not been in the federal government and tried to hire—it is a huge-level effort to hire that many people in that period of time; a huge-level effort … half my staff have come on board during the pandemic and have not met colleagues in person.”

    Holman said that the big-picture goal for the OS and FDA alike is creating an offramp for smokers to transition to less harmful products while minimizing any potential on-ramps for youth initiation, adding that youth use has been “decreasing the last couple of years, which is a really positive thing.” He also explained that the agency often hears a lot of criticism, some undeserved, surrounding the misinformation disseminated into the public by “stakeholders” (anti-nicotine organizations, health agencies, tobacco control groups, regulators and industry players).

    “We take all the feedback seriously … And we certainly actively encourage all stakeholders to engage with one another. I would hope to be able to sit here and say that I’ve been more successful than I have in that. There’s still a lot of resistance. There’s still a lot of really emotional, heated exchanges and feelings toward stakeholders,” said Holman. “I’m even seeing a shift in some of the stakeholder groups that have been aligned [previously] and now aren’t
    necessarily aligning.

    “I’ve just celebrated 20 years at the FDA in December. That entire 20 years, I’ve spent really actively engaging with all stakeholders, and I think it’s critical as regulators that we hear from and we talk with and we communicate—and we’re trying to be as transparent as possible—with all stakeholders. Unfortunately, I don’t control all the stakeholders. And I keep carrying this message forward. It doesn’t always get heard so well. And so, it’s still very much a work in progress.”

    Ultimately, Holman said the FDA is trying its best to base its decisions on the “good” science and not a specific source of data. “I don’t even care who the author is. I mean, the science is science,” he said. “Unfortunately, we have a lot of stakeholders that don’t look [at] it that way, and a lot that think they know what the policies shouldn’t be, and they want to come up with the science to demonstrate that. But we’re very aware of that. We’re very much looking out for that type of thing.”

    We take all the feedback seriously … And we certainly actively encourage all stakeholders to engage with one another.

    Matt Holman, director of the FDA CTP Office of Science

    Being Approachable

    Holman said he understands the frustration of trying to combat misinformation. On the FDA’s side, he wanted to clarify at least some of the misunderstandings and misperceptions he commonly hears when stakeholders discuss the FDA. For example, he had recently heard a stakeholder saying that the FDA only had one economist on staff. “FDA has more than one economist,” he said. “The CTP has more than one economist. I want to be clear about that … You can agree or disagree with where economists land on their analysis. That’s fine. But just to say that we only have one economist—this concern is just a major misrepresentation of the situation.”

    There are also the rumors that the regulatory agency doesn’t read all the docket submissions (everything submitted to the agency, whether a comment on rulemaking or a PMTA). Holman said the quality of the submissions vary greatly, but the agency is required by law to look at every single one. “To suggest that the FDA’s regulators don’t carefully consider the data when we’re weighing options … at the end of the day, we have a public health mission where we’re here to serve,” said Holman. “We’re not here to oppose anyone. I look at data from all sources. I don’t care who it comes from … to suggest anything otherwise, at least for the FDA, honestly, it’s a bit insulting … you can criticize all you want about where we come out on decisions and rulemaking, but at the end of the day, we are very much a science-based organization.”

    The agency also tries to consider the unintended consequences of regulatory action, according to Holman. However, he explained that determining these factors, such as the growth of a black market, is complicated because there’s often not a lot of data. “It’s very much [speculating] what’s going to happen to the black market or the gray market when we take an action. We don’t often have data on that. So it’s really modeling or predicting,” he said. “We absolutely consider that because, at the end of the day … as I like to say to my staff, we’re trying to tackle this with a scalpel not a machete. Because I think that’s how you sort of leave this fine line that we’re all trying to leave here.”

    Ligon asked Holman whether the FDA’s approach to regulating next-generation tobacco products was a workable standard. Ligon wanted to know if the FDA still recognizes that tobacco products exist on a continuum of risk, with combustible cigarettes being the most harmful (the “continuum of risk” is the scientific concept that some nicotine-delivery systems are more harmful than others). Holman said that while the FDA doesn’t know precisely what the relative risks are of the different products on the spectrum, the agency still believes in the continuum of risk.

    “The challenge is having strong, rigorous data that we can stand behind and say, ‘Yes, we know this product is lower in risk than that product.’ That’s one of the biggest challenges still, I think, figuring out how to collect that data, what are the right types of studies, what’s the sort of full body of data that we need to be comfortable saying, ‘Yes, this product is down the continuum from that product,’” he said. “I think the other big challenge in this is … communicating with the consumers because if they don’t understand—and we know there’s a lack of understanding—a lot of misperceptions and misunderstandings [begin to grow].”

    Workable Solution

    Communication is key. Holman said that to better understand the process and the challenges that stakeholders are suffering, the agency needs to better communicate its thought processes and goals. Before the Covid-19 pandemic limited stakeholder interaction, the agency would hold workshops to hear directly from stakeholders about their concerns. Holman wants to bring back that level of communication.

    “We need to do workshops. It’s been almost a year since we’ve done the last workshop, and a whole heck of a lot of things have happened in that time period. We’re definitely going to take that back with our staff and talk about how to put some workshops together because the feedback we’ve gotten to date on the workshops we have done [previously] have been very positive,” said Holman. “Folks really appreciate the discussion. Not only to hear what we have to say, but just talks among attendees and some shared ideas and thoughts.”

    When asked if there were any suggestions from TMA attendees for workshop concepts, several stakeholders offered ideas. One stakeholder wanted to discuss with the FDA how PMTA data is managed and submitted to the FDA. The participant said that his company had received a deficiency letter; however, the additional data requested was already included in the company’s PMTA. Holman said that type of seminar would be a “win-win” for both the agency and the stakeholders.

    Another attendee suggested that the agency bring in consumers to allow the FDA to hear from them directly and to understand the consumers’ thoughts, behaviors and attitudes as well as the impact of potential regulations on possible future consumer behavior. “I just feel like there’s a gap,” the attendee said. “I really think that would do a lot in being able to bring all of us together to promote the science.”

    Other attendees wanted to have a better understanding of how the FDA comes to its decisions and what some of the common errors were in PMTAs that had received marketing denial letters. “I’m suggesting a little bit [of a] deeper dive by product category into the top 10 reasons you’re finding that something succeeds and [the] top 10 reasons you’re finding that something fails,” the attendee said. “I’m talking more about … here are the reasons why these fail … here’s why this doesn’t work.”

    Holman said the fundamental goal of the FDA is moving people down the continuum of risk. He said that the consumer
    is the most important part of the equation and that all stakeholders need to be better at getting less harmful tobacco products into the hands of adult combustible smokers. He said that he would hope that five years from now the tobacco product marketplace looks very different. Holman suggested that manufacturers with the ENDS products that exist now, alongside the “products we’re not even talking about that I know are in the pipeline” at various companies, should also consider using the agency’s modified-risk tobacco product (MRTP) pipeline
    moving forward.

    “I would hope that our MRTP program sees a lot more action and that we see a lot more modified-risk statements on products … And again, I think the lack of dialogue amongst stakeholders, and the lack of sort of any level of agreement, really thwarts communication because the information the consumers are receiving, it’s all over the place, right?” Holman suggested. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there that certain stakeholders convey that just doesn’t reflect the science. Just flat out doesn’t … if we could just get stakeholders to agree on some basic key communication points that we would all collectively share with consumers, I think we could really drive this forward. But right now, consumers are just confused.”    

    Timothy Donahue is the assistant editor of Tobacco Reporter. Since joining our team in January 2013, he has become not only an expert on the traditional tobacco business but also a well-respected voice in the rapidly developing vapor industry. Tim spends much of his time on the road, attending conferences and interviewing industry representatives. His networking skills, work ethic and quick mind are valuable assets to our diverse audience.
  • Taking Charge

    Taking Charge

    Photo: medwedja

    Regulators, manufacturers and consumers all bear a responsibility to minimize the environmental impact of the batteries used to power electronic nicotine-delivery devices.

    By George Gay

    A local councilor wrote a letter to me in February that went out to all his constituents, and, since he had taken the trouble to write at a time when elections weren’t due, I felt I should do him the courtesy of replying. So I did. I expounded at length my theories about how, in the face of the current existential environmental crisis, we should do away with all private cars by starting a campaign at the local level. (If you’re ever having trouble sleeping, call me, and I shall go through my ideas with you.)

    Abolishing private cars, I pointed out, would cause, for instance, a colossal saving on road maintenance costs, a huge fall in serious road accidents, a dramatic drop in pollution, a life-enhancing saving for the health service, an increase in community cohesion and an astronomical fall in criminality. I also pointed out that switching to electric cars will not save the environment partly because, according to recent research, nanoplastic contamination has been polluting Greenland’s ice cap for at least 50 years, and a quarter of the polluting particles are from vehicle tires.

    “I think it’ll be a brave person who tries to ban them [private cars],” replied my councilor, who, as far as I can tell, is an intelligent, well-meaning person. “Inconsiderate parking forms by far the largest part of my email box,” ran his next sentence.

    One of my concerns here is that I am going mad. What I seem to be hearing is that you would have to be afraid of public reaction if you tried to ban private cars, even though one negative aspect of the use of such cars is on the uppermost rung of the angry ladder within many people’s minds. Surely, if you harnessed this anger and appealed to people to think about the existential crisis as it pertains to their children and grandchildren, you would have the basis for a campaign.

    But I don’t think so. I believe a lot of people are able to function reasonably normally while keeping multiple opposing views in their minds simultaneously. “Yes, I’m worried about the effects of climate change, and I would do anything to prevent harming children, but I wouldn’t give up my polluting car for anything.” Hmm. Have you ever thought about having your head examined, you unbelievably irrational, selfish person?

    E-Cigarettes

    But perhaps, completely out of character, I’m being unfair. Perhaps such confused thinking is not surprising in a complex world. Where, for instance, should one stand in respect of e-cigarettes and other battery-driven devices aimed at helping smokers switch to less risky products? Sure, there are huge, direct personal health benefits to be reaped by smokers of combustible cigarettes switching to e-cigarettes, but what about the indirect negative effects caused by the careless discarding of e-cigarette batteries, about which this piece is mainly concerned, and other materials? How do these effects, which impinge upon nonusers too, compare with those of discarded cigarette butts? And where do heat-not-burn devices, with their batteries and butts, come into the equation?

    What’s the problem, you might ask. Well, from my admittedly less-than-comprehensive internet research, most electronic vapor devices use lithium-ion batteries, which are compact, complex devices designed without disassembly in mind, though various of their elements can be recycled. Simply put, they comprise a cathode, anode, separator and electrolyte. Battery technology is developing all the time, but, currently, they might contain, among other things, copper, aluminum, cobalt, nickel, manganese or rare earth metallic elements. And, of course, lithium. Given that these batteries contain heavy metals and toxic chemicals, disposing of them in landfill sites, where they will eventually leak, gives rise to concerns about soil contamination, water pollution and combustion.

    The good news is that these batteries, or parts of them, can be recycled, and, in many countries, there are facilities for such recycling. The bad news is that recycling is not without its problems. It might, for instance, involve chemical or mechanical separation, and/or smelting and, as part of these high-energy processes, give rise to significant electrical, chemical and thermal issues and costs.

    Another concern lies in the figures. Some figures suggest that “up to” 90 percent of battery elements can be recycled, which is less than comforting because it could mean anywhere from 0 percent to 90 percent. And, in any case, this speaks only to the percentages of battery materials that can be recycled. Because of technical, economic, logistical, regulatory and other factors, fewer than 5 percent of lithium-ion batteries are currently recycled.

    This 5 percent figure refers to all lithium-ion batteries, so, given that car batteries are of the same type, either there will be a big push to make the recycling of such batteries more efficient than it currently is, or we are going to wind up with a mountain of used batteries in landfill sites. Again, from my reading, in the absence of organized, large-scale recycling operations, battery manufacturers will continue to concentrate on lowering the costs of production and increasing battery longevity and charge capacity. Increasing battery longevity provides an advantage, but it should not be allowed to stand in for recycling.

    Fortunately, there are commercial and other benefits to recycling, but, as above, they are often canceled out by the perceived downsides. One swing factor is the price of the metals concerned. If the cost of mining them is higher than the cost of recycling them, then recycling is likely to get a look in; otherwise, probably not. That is the logic of the free market. But this is not a simple matter because decisions are influenced by the fact that mines and recycling facilities are capital intensive and take a relatively long time to set up whereas CEO bonuses are determined on the basis of annual reports. Such short-term factors are also likely to cloud the advantage that recycling might prevent future shortages of cobalt and nickel, for instance. And it might encourage battery manufacturers to ignore the fact that metal supply chains often start in a limited number of countries, some of which are not politically stable.

    So far, I have written only about vaping devices, but there are different types, and it is perhaps unfortunate that disposables seem to be on the rise. Whereas rechargeable devices will last a while and have easily removable batteries that, in many countries, can be taken to local recycling centers, disposables last a matter of days, have batteries that cannot be removed easily and must be taken in their entirety to specialist e-waste centers where they are available.

    While it is reasonable to expect smokers to dispose of cigarette butts responsibly, the dismantling of some vaping devices and the disposal of their constituent parts might be a stretch for the average brain. (Photo: Sergey)

    Taking Action

    So what are e-cigarette suppliers doing about the environmental impact of their products? Some are required to take seemingly modest action—given the state we are in—under regulations such as the EU’s Directive that sets targets for the collection, recovery and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment in general. Some are trying to do the right thing by providing online advice about how consumers can dispose of vaping device elements so as to ensure as far as possible that these elements are recycled. Some are setting up systems that allow customers to return used devices so that the suppliers arrange for recycling, sometimes in respect of all devices, including those of other suppliers. One Tobacco Reporter report based on a story in the Budapest Business Journal in August said Philip Morris International had inaugurated an e-cigarette recycling center on the outskirts of Budapest capable of recycling 150,000 electronic tobacco devices a month. This was said to have been PMI’s second such facility, the first one having been opened in Japan. But there were no other details, so the story raised more questions than it answered, making it difficult to judge how seriously the recycling issue was being taken.

    I must say that I am not filled with confidence. If you look at the history of the tobacco/nicotine industry, we never got on top of the carelessly discarded cigarette butts issue, and now, well into the second decade of vaping devices and past the point of no return in respect of environmental breakdown, there seems to be no plan for a coordinated industry approach to the issue of carelessly discarded vaping devices. Indeed, there seems little interest, let alone a plan. Asked to contribute to this story, BAT, Imperial Brands and Japan Tobacco International each said no thanks. Juul and PMI didn’t reply. Vaping associations in the U.K. and the U.S., while showing initial interest, fell by the wayside.

    Of course, the industry is not wholly to blame for the situation we are in. Governments and regulators shoulder some of the responsibility. The cigarette butts problem could have been largely overcome years ago by regulators having the courage to ban cigarette filters. At the same time, it is hardly fair to blame the U.S. vaping device industry for being reluctant to invest heavily in respect of environmental issues when the regulatory framework within which suppliers operate is chaotic. And it has to be said that in banning snus, the tobacco harm reduction product with what must be by far and away the best environmental credentials, the EU has clearly indicated that it would rather indulge in political posturing than environmental protection.

    Consumers’ Responsibility

    And then, of course, we come to consumers, many of whom seem not to be concerned about carelessly discarding cigarette butts, vaping devices and any other products that they no longer have use for. They, of course, have the power to end most of the environmental problems, but just as they won’t give up their cars, they won’t stop using the streets as giant trash cans. But perhaps I’m being unfair again. While it is reasonable, I think, to expect smokers to dispose of cigarette butts responsibly, the dismantling of some vaping devices and the disposal of their constituent parts might be a stretch for the average brain.

    What the industry needs to be wary of is the fact that no matter what consumers do, the industry will get the blame for environmental problems caused by its products. Those people who are opposed to vaping will use environmental issues to undermine these products, no matter how many lives they might save. The Truth Initiative, for instance, says that e-cigarette manufacturers are failing to provide consumers with guidance or take responsibility for appropriate disposal methods, presumably trying to justify why, according to the initiative, “[o]nly 15 percent of young e-cigarette users reported disposing of empty pods or disposable vapes by dropping them off or sending them for electronic recycling.” And it compares e-cigarettes unfavorably with cigarettes when it comes to environmental issues. “E-cigarette waste is potentially a more serious environmental threat than cigarette butts since e-cigarettes introduce plastic, nicotine salts, heavy metals, lead, mercury and flammable lithium-ion batteries into waterways, soil and to wildlife,” the Truth Initiative says. “Unlike cigarette butts, e-cigarette waste won’t biodegrade even under severe conditions. E-cigarettes left on the street eventually break down into microplastics and chemicals that flow into the storm drains to pollute our waterways and wildlife.”

    That is worrying. So perhaps it is time for the industry to concentrate on producing products that break down almost harmlessly if discarded in the street. Would such a product be possible? Certainly, it would have to be one without a battery and would therefore produce a different consumer experience. So the question arises as to whether consumers would be willing to have what is perhaps a less satisfying experience in the knowledge that they were making a positive contribution to the environment.

    I doubt it. But there is another way, and given that we are in such an environmental mess, it should not be ruled out. We could go in reverse. While leaving on sale filterless cigarettes, pipe tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, cigars, snuff and snus, regulators could ban filtered cigarettes, roll-your-own filters and electronic vaping devices. At the same time, the door could be left open for manufacturers to come up with new, less risky tobacco/nicotine products that were not hugely damaging to the environment.

    George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.
  • Rolling With The Punches

    Rolling With The Punches

    Photo: Republic Brands

    Rolling paper manufacturers benefit from pandemic-related downtrading and moves to legalize cannabis.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    With Covid-19 refusing to clear the stage and Russia invading Ukraine, crisis appears to have become the new normal. For many industries, business as usual ceased when the pandemic broke out two years ago, bringing about an economic slump. Worldwide, consumers have had to cope with lower disposable incomes. Such a development often prompts smokers to switch from expensive factory-made cigarettes to more affordable roll-your-own or make-your-own products—and, indeed, manufacturers of cigarette rolling papers have noted a positive effect on their businesses.

    “Speaking exclusively from a business perspective, we had two extremely strong years with record sales levels,” relates Santiago Sanchez, executive president of Republic Brands in France. “We were fortunate to have our plants running at full capacity as we didn’t have to shut them down for a day. Of course, the health of our employees was a priority, but thanks to the strict sanitary measures taken from day one, we were able to maintain or even increase our volumes.”

    Michael O’Malley, founder and CEO of Curved Papers in the U.S., says his rolling paper sales were up 40 percent last year. “People are just blazing weed like never before,” he says. “And it’s a good alternative among the choices people have made to cope.”

    Lisa Esser, head of corporate affairs and business development at Gizeh Raucherbedarf in Germany, has observed an enormous shift of sales within Europe due to closed borders during the pandemic. While in 2019, almost 20 percent of cigarettes consumed had been nonduty paid, it was “only” 14 percent in 2021, she points out. The development was similar for rolling tobacco. However, while the absolute share of duty-paid tobacco sales in Germany grew during the pandemic, this does not reflect more tobacco consumption in absolute terms. Rather, says Esser, a large share of the previous cross-border sales has returned to national retail.

    Curved Papers’ sales jumped 40 percent in 2021.
    (Photo: Curved Papers)

    Rising Production Costs

    Santiago Sanchez

    The numerous pandemic-related disruptions, including container shortages and raw material price increases, have also impacted suppliers of rolling paper. The availability of cartons and cellulose have been especially affected. “The vast increases in energy costs are not only hitting us but also our suppliers, who often pass on these costs to us,” says Esser. “There are also considerable challenges in logistics, with much longer lead times and shipping costs partly exploding. We expect price hikes of 10 [percent] to 20 percent across the entire value chain. Nevertheless, our supply of materials has been secured and continues to be of highest priority for us.”

    During the first days of the lockdown, particularly in 2020, Republic Brands was concerned about logistical problems, both in the supply of raw materials and in the shipment of their finished products, according to Sanchez. “Thanks to the strong mobilization of logistics companies, our activities have not suffered in terms of logistics,” he says. “On the other hand, in the second half of 2021, we faced, like all other industries, difficulties in the Chinese supply chain, particularly the shortage of containers. These were just the beginnings of the tensions we are currently experiencing.”

    Curved Papers, which caters mainly to the U.S. and Canadian markets, says it has been able to keep its stocks at the required levels. “Shipping has made us take a hit, but we’re not yet changing our price to the customer,” says O’Malley. While the conflict in Ukraine has not directly impacted his company, the global double whammy of a pandemic followed by the threat of World War III has made it hard to start new initiatives around the world. “It seems a matter of keeping what you have together and trying to respond to demand,” says O’Malley.

    Esser expects a dramatic rise in costs and purchasing prices. “Risk assessment has shown that the pricing situation represents the biggest risk,” she says. “The situation has been exacerbated by the Ukraine crisis. We must contend with difficult conditions and are in close contact with our suppliers to be able to mitigate potential hurdles early on.”

    Republic Brands is present in more than 100 markets and, as a result, feels the impact of the conflict, according to Sanchez. “I will not say anything original if I say that the Ukrainian war, in addition to being a humanitarian disaster in Europe, is significantly affecting all our activities in every sense of the word,” he says. “I have never seen anything like this before. Rising prices [for raw materials] are not the only problem. There is also a lot of pressure on the availability of raw materials. Just as there is a lot of pressure on the availability and consumption of energy. Some companies in our sector or in related industries—cigarette paper, acetate tow, etc.—consume lots of energy and are therefore highly exposed to the risk of increased energy costs. For our part, and even if it is symbolic, we have decided to stop our sales in Russia and Belarus. This is the minimum we could do.”

    Eager to reduce the environmental footprint of their operations, rolling paper manufacturers are increasingly using fast-growing or recycled materials instead of fresh fibers in their products.
    (Photo: Gizeh Raucherbedarf)

    Greening Processes

    Michael O’Malley

    In addition to coping with current challenges, companies are working to become more sustainable. O’Malley, whose rolling papers are manufactured in the Dominican Republic, says his company’s paper comes from Forest Stewardship Council-certified forests and is produced under processes following strict European standards. “We would like to use more recycled material in our packaging,” he says. “We are always innovating.”

    Gizeh, meanwhile, is striving to install sustainable processes in all of its operations. “Improvement is an ongoing project,” says Esser. “The maximum reduction of energy consumption is given high priority. In Austria, for example—our largest production site—we have invested in a photovoltaic system. Besides, we are constantly trying to reduce the use of fresh fibers and instead utilize fast-growing alternatives or recycled materials.”

    Republic Brands, too, is continuously working to minimize its carbon footprint. “An important step has been obtaining the ISO 14001 certification, which confirms the implementation and the effectiveness of an environmental management system. The group and all its employees adhere to a set of common values that are grouped together in an environmental charter, which can be accessed from our website.” The company’s factory in Perpignan, France, and its booklet distribution warehouse are powered by hydroelectric power stations in the Pyrenees and in the Alps.

    Republic has launched a cigarette paper booklet with a CBD-infused gum line under Roor brand in select European countries. (Photo: Republic Brands)

    The Power of Pot

    While the current business environment for rolling papers is far from ideal, new opportunities keep arising as more jurisdictions around the world legalize cannabis. “In countries where legalization has occurred in recent years, such as Canada and the United States, we are seeing a growth in sales,” confirms Sanchez. “The debate is open in many European countries, and now the only question is how soon the legislation on cannabis use will be relaxed,” he says. “We were the first to develop a new product for this category—namely a cigarette paper booklet with a CBD-infused gum line. Under the iconic Roor brand, these products have been launched in select European countries. In addition, one of the products is made from rice paper. Currently, this is the only product containing real rice fiber—from Camargue, France—although many others print ‘rice’ in their packaging.”

    Founded in 2014, Curved Paper started out offering cigarette papers for cannabis consumption. “Eventually, hemp and flax came in as a couple of concerns or interests drove innovation of hemp and other nonwood material-based papers,” says O’Malley. “There is something to the don’t-cut-down-trees thing, of course, though we do it sustainably—but they do make the best rolling paper. The inexorable drive toward lighter papers, which zoomed right past the desirable range for a while there, was accompanied by this diversion away from wood pulp papers.

    “Hemp-based papers are popular as [hemp] is from the same plant as marijuana. The papers commonly called ‘rice papers’ are mostly made from hemp and flax. The term ‘rice’ is from the early days of fine paper centuries ago. Fine paper first came from China and was indeed made from rice. So as Europeans developed printing and the fine European paper we have had for centuries now, they called all fine paper rice paper, and that term of art remains in use till this day not only in rolling papers but in all kinds of paper industries.”

    Curved Paper offers seven styles based on four kinds of paper at two popular sizes, 1 1/4 and KSS. “Our marketing is still only U.S.[-based] and Canada-based, so our focus remains on cannabis,” says O’Malley. “Tobacco is 25 times as big. We have customers in the U.K. and the EU and all over the world, and we look forward to the global market, which is much larger for some of our exact same products. We are not looking to flood the market with a lot of silly products. In the long run, easy, simple and natural are going to be strong qualities to market. While cut corners are making a big move in 2022, our easy-to-roll curved edge is the next-generation solution to the same problem—and our key differentiator.”

    Having recently decided to legalize recreational marijuana (see “State of Euphoria,” Tobacco Reporter, February 2022), Germany is poised to become the EU’s most important cannabis market—although it will likely take years before cannabis will be legally available in the country. Esser welcomes sensible regulation, saying that consumers should have access to less risky, quality-controlled legal products.

    Unlike O’Malley, Sanchez does not necessarily believe that the best rolling papers are made from trees. Many cigarette and RYO paper companies, he says, use other fiber sources, such as hemp, flax, rice and bamboo, etc. These materials, notes Sanchez, are generally not inferior to base tree paper and in many cases cause less pollution.

    He cites the example of Roor, which is already distributed in Germany without referencing cannabis. “We only develop our business in strict compliance with national regulations. However, as soon as legislation is made more flexible, we will develop our strategy accordingly.”

    For O’Malley, European cannabis is a promising horizon. “The way it came from the West Coast here to New York and then to Europe is a prediction we made long ago that is playing out,” he says. “After a rolling papers brand matures, unless there is a major innovation, like introducing a curved version, it often becomes a pseudo-lifestyle brand to engage already loyal customers. This opportunity is huge as the political engagement behind legalization activates communities, as it will in Europe in the coming years and as it will continue [to do] in the U.S. So, even though tobacco is the big opportunity in actual use of the products, the cannabis culture stuff will be rich with opportunities for content creation for rolling paper brands.”

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • Sailing to Zero

    Sailing to Zero

    Photo: BAT

    BAT wants to become carbon neutral across its value chain by 2050.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    For the environment, tobacco production is a damaging business. In 2014, global cigarette manufacturing was responsible for 84 million tons, or 0.2 percent, of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to a study by Imperial College. Eager to minimize their impact, tobacco companies have been working hard to reduce their carbon footprint.

    BAT, for one, aims for carbon neutral operations by 2030 and a “net-zero” value chain by 2050. The company signed up for the United Nations-backed Race to Zero global campaign, an initiative to halve global emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. As part of this, BAT has committed itself to realigning its existing carbon neutral targets, which were previously based on the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, to match the new consensus that the temperature rise should be limited 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid severe climate change effects on people, wildlife and ecosystems.

    In 2020, BAT’s emissions totaled to 6.11 million tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e), according to the company’s ESG Report 2021. The company’s own operations, however, contributed a mere 9 percent of its total 2020 emissions footprint. The remainder were “Scope 3” emissions—indirect emissions from resources that the organization does not own.

    Seventy-six percent of Scope 3 emissions came from the company’s upstream value chain, including 32 percent from tobacco growing (fertilizers, curing barns, farm machinery, etc.) and 22 percent from materials. Another 15 percent emerged from BAT’s downstream value chain, 10 percent of which were produced by the use of sold products and 5 percent by their end-of-life treatment.

    BAT is tackling the emissions of both its own operations and its wider value chain. To decarbonize its operations, the company continues to expand its renewable energy sourcing. Across its manufacturing sites, it is identifying opportunities to reduce CO2e emissions through decarbonization assessments and value stream mapping. Internal carbon pricing has been incorporated into the company’s business plans since 2021 to ensure that the impact on environmental performance and targets is formally considered and quantified.

    A Cure for Curing

    By generating solar power on-site and purchasing green electricity, BAT aims to expand its number of carbon neutral sites. Of BAT’s 75 manufacturing facilities, 32 were sourcing 100 percent renewable electricity by the end of last year while 19 sites were producing renewable energy on the spot. Combined, the company says, these measures have reduced CO2 emissions to 42.7 percent of CO2e from its 2017 baseline. Renewable sources currently account for 28.6 percent of BAT’s total energy consumption. The company aims to achieve 100 percent by 2030.

    Reducing emissions in its tobacco supply chain, where about a third of BAT’s Scope 3 carbon emissions are generated, is a tougher nut to crack. Most of these emissions come from tobacco curing. Although more than 80 percent of BAT’s annual leaf volumes are cured using renewable fuels, sustainable wood, biomass or sun curing, the problem of emissions persists.

    The company sources approximately 61 percent of its tobacco leaf from its own operations in 18 countries, which contract directly with more than 75,000 farmers. The company’s remaining leaf comes from third-party suppliers in 26 countries that contract with over 264,000 farmers.

    In several countries, BAT has introduced fuel-efficient curing technologies, among them new types of curing barns that enable at least a 30 percent reduction in fuel use and a 14 percent reduction in electricity use. For the tobacco volumes it purchases, the company aims to eliminate the use of coal as a curing fuel. Coal-cured leaf presently accounts for 10 percent of the tobacco that BAT sources through third-party suppliers.

    To further determine the best combination of curing technologies and fuel types for reducing emissions, the company started trials in six countries in 2021. Its global leaf agronomy center in Brazil is identifying startups to help develop new technologies and practices that support carbon-smart farming.

    Planting trees and cover crops and practicing conservation tillage not only keep the soil covered and store carbon but they may also increase water retention capacity, improving drainage and making the soil more fertile, which in turn will lead to increased yields and better quality crops. BAT is currently working with a specialist consultancy to validate its approach and verify the results. The company started testing its carbon-smart farming program with 35 farmers in Brazil last year and intends to expand the pilot to Bangladesh, Mexico and Pakistan in 2022.

    Making Products More Sustainable

    Product materials account for around 59 percent of BAT’s Scope 3 emissions, 15 percent of which are generated by the company’s 30 largest direct suppliers across more than 100 sites. An assessment showed that most suppliers were only in the early stages of decarbonization. To enable suppliers to align with its net zero target, BAT provides support and technical assistance and continues to track progress.

    To include end products in its sustainability ambitions, BAT has implemented a company-wide circular economy. Through life-cycle analysis across its product categories, the company has identified key areas that can contribute to reducing Scope 3 emissions, including the optimization of product design and shipping goods by sea instead of air where possible. Underlining its environmental commitment, BAT in 2021 announced that its Vuse e-cigarette had become the first global carbon neutral vape brand.

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • Pyxus’ ESG Journey

    Pyxus’ ESG Journey

    Photo: Pyxus International

    Advancing progress on key global issues

    By Pieter Sikkel

     It is hard to believe that our company will soon celebrate its sesquicentennial. To say that our business, the tobacco industry and the world in which we live and work has changed over the course of 150 years would be an understatement. In fact, if we were to solely reflect on the events of just the past few years—from uncertainties generated by a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, the growing social divide and heightened geopolitical risk to the rapid escalation of climate change—there is no shortness of evolution.

    These global events have led companies and their stakeholders to take a step back and ask, “How are the decisions of today impacting the world of tomorrow?” This sentiment is the driving force behind what we now refer to as ESG—environmental, social and governance: the three key areas used to measure a business’ ethical impact and approach to sustainability.

    Pyxus is uniquely positioned to have a positive impact on key global issues, including climate change, farmer prosperity and human rights, and we have been incorporating sustainable practices into our operations for as long as I can remember. For example, in 1991, we launched the first of our now global reforestation initiatives, helping the forests where we operate to become more resilient in the years to come, and in 2012, we introduced our Agricultural Labor Practices program, setting on-the-farm standards that our contracted farmers must adhere to. We are quite proud of our efforts, but we recognized that the process behind them needed to be enhanced in order to advance progress on key global issues. That is why, in December of 2021, we introduced our ESG framework, providing the connection between our company’s business priorities and our purpose—to transform people’s lives so that together we can grow a better world.

    Pyxus’ ESG framework takes the company’s three sustainability pillars—minimizing environmental impact; support for people and communities; and ethical and responsible business—a step further, identifying relevant focus areas and measurable goals to drive positive change and create long-lasting impacts. For example, one of our 12 focus areas is sustainable agricultural methods and practices. Within that focus area, we have set a goal of zero net global deforestation by 2030 in order to help grow a greener future. To date, our business has planted over 250 million trees worldwide as we work toward achieving our long-term goal.

    In order to best position us for success, our ESG framework is supported by a robust governance and implementation structure, which we have based on an annual cycle of continuous improvement. This allows our business to identify and overcome challenges as they arise, prioritize local-level initiatives and leverage the leadership and skill sets of our employee base while holding us accountable for year-over-year progress.

    Additionally, we have aligned our approach with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a call to action to address global challenges. There is increasing evidence that businesses that operate sustainably and in support of the United Nations SDGs—while reporting transparently about their progress—can deliver stronger growth and returns for all stakeholders. With this in mind, we publicly shared our company’s CDP scores, which are determined by data reported as part of the global nonprofit’s annual environmental disclosure process. We will also publish our first Global Reporting Initiative sustainability report later this year.

    Moving forward, our company, the tobacco industry and the world in which we live and work will undoubtedly continue to change, and what tomorrow looks like will be defined by the decisions we make today. Companies, regardless of industry or size, have the opportunity to incorporate ESG into their business operations in order to address global issues and shift the paradigm. We encourage our tobacco industry partners to join us in integrating sustainable, measurable solutions so that together we can grow a better world.

    Pyxus’ ESG strategy includes three key pillars underscored by the company’s purpose of transforming people’s lives to grow a better world:

    Environment: to implement sustainable solutions that further improve the company’s environmental performance and reduce the environmental footprint of the company and its supply chain;

    Social: to support the company’s employees, contracted farmers and the communities where it operates, protecting human rights and providing an equal opportunity for success to all; and

    Governance: to operate responsibly and ethically in every action that the company takes.

    Pieter Sikkel is the president and CEO of Pyxus International.