Category: Innovation

  • KT&G Steps up Investment in Indonesia

    KT&G Steps up Investment in Indonesia

    Photo: KT&G

    KT&G will invest KRW600 billion ($454 million) and hire about 1,000 people in Indonesia. The company’s local operations will serve not only Indonesia but also the Middle East and other markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

    “KT&G chose Indonesia as the company’s center of production for the Asia-Pacific market,” KT&G Indonesia’s president director, Jeong Yun-sig, told JoongAng Daily. Indonesia is KT&G’s biggest market outside Korea, accounting for 22.6 percent of the tobacco company’s total exports as of 2023.

    KT&G entered Indonesia in 2011, when it bought a local tobacco company. As of 2023, the company had sold 9.55 billion cigarettes in the country, propelling it to the No. 4 spot among tobacco manufacturers in Indonesia, ahead of multinationals such as British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International.

     In April, KT&G broke ground for two additional Indonesian factories. Upon completion, company will have a production capacity in Indonesia of 35 billion cigarettes annually.

     “We have consistently invested in the Indonesian market, building a local R&D center and hiring experts for localization efforts,” Jeong Yun-sig said. “The localized version of Esse and new brands for the Indonesian market worked well for the company.”

  • Smoore Demonstrates its Commitment at GTNF

    Smoore Demonstrates its Commitment at GTNF

    Eve Wang (middle) receiving the Golden Leaf Award for Innovation for VAPORESSO COSS (Photos: Smoore)

    A Golden Leaf Award and keynote presentation highlight the company’s investments in cutting-edge vaping technology.  

    At the recent Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum in Seoul, Smoore earned a Golden Leaf Award and proposed a framework to help the industry “innovate through challenges.”

    The atomization company was recognized for its Vaporesso COSS, which stands for “Convenient Operating and Smart Supplying,” according to Smoore.

    “One of the major pain points for vapers is the trade-off between e-liquid or battery endurance and convenience,” explained Smoore Vice President Eve Wang upon receiving the award. “Typically, the longer it lasts, the less convenient it becomes. That is why COSS was introduced. It keeps you powered up and well-supplied with its smart supplying system. Additionally, thanks to its coil-e-liquid separation design, it’s also leak-resistant, ensuring a fresh puff every time.”

    In thanking the GLA judges, Wang promised Smoore would keep pushing forward and innovating.

    The company’s commitment to innovation was also demonstrated in Wang’s keynote speech at GTNF.

    She started by giving an overview of development of vapor products over the past 20 years and summarizing the biggest current challenges—preventing underage vaping and minimizing the environmental impact of vaping products.

    According to Wang, vaping efficiency is a combination of atomization efficiency and power efficiency. “For atomization efficiency, there are several key factors to be considered, such as e-liquid supply, the physical and chemical process atomization, as well as the technology for aerosol generation and distribution,” she explained.

    “We have seen some promising results in these areas,” she said. “If we translate it into consumer benefits, atomization efficiency is fully utilizing e-liquid for good taste, more puffs and improvement in cost effectiveness. Power efficiency translates into increased energy density; therefore we are able to reduce the battery size as small as possible. It means less impact to the environment and a longer life cycle.”

    Wang then shared the contributions to vaping efficiency made by Smoore’s Feelm Max, Feelm Air and Power Alpha products.

    She concluded her speech by encouraging stakeholders to keep innovating and evolving the technology to improve harm reduction, cost-effectiveness and sustainability, along with providing a better user experience. Wang urged her audience to harness collaborations in innovation and social responsibility to achieve a balanced solution between regulation and user experience. Following her speech, Wang moderated a panel titled “Innovating Products for the Future.”

    Eve Wang (left) as moderator

    Later that day, Smoore Senior Strategy Director Rex Zhang joined a group of panelists to provide an update on research and innovation relating to next-generation products.

    Zhang detailed Smoore’s advancements in sustainability and vaping efficiency. The company, he said, had reduced the amount of lithium materials in its vaporizers and increased the lifespan of its products, thus reducing the environmental impact of disposables.

    Demonstrating Smoore’s commitment to preventing underage vaping, Zhang highlighted the Feelm Max’s smart child lock. Once an adult user puts down the vape and doesn’t use it for a while, the atomizer will automatically lock, he explained. If a child subsequently attempts to use it, the device will not produce vapor. To reactivate the device, an adult user must suck on the mouthpiece three times within two seconds.

    Zhang also spoke about the importance of regulatory compliance and the user experience. He expressed confidence that science would demonstrate the potential of electronic nicotine devices as tobacco harm reduction tools.

    Going forward, Smoore innovation efforts will focus heavily on vaping efficiency, Zhang explained. “It is our internal thinking—the engine driving us forward to achieve more,” he said. “Smoore’s mission ‘Atomization Makes Life Better,’ aligns very well with this objective to continue to work on the R&D; improving it for bettering people’s life.”

    Rex Zhang (third from right) as panelist
  • Special Report: Innovation

    Special Report: Innovation

    Photo: peshkova

    Until recently, few people would have mentioned the words “tobacco” and “innovation” in the same sentence. Even as other legacy industries started disrupting their respective operations, the tobacco industry remained content to milk its tried-and-tested business model and count on the habit-forming properties of nicotine to sustain its business.

    That has changed dramatically over the past 15 years. Advances in technology, together with shifting attitudes, have turned the once-staid nicotine business into a cutting-edge innovator. The modern e-cigarette was not invented by the tobacco industry, but when it started making inroads around 2008, the industry recognized its potential and devoted considerable resources to its perfection. The ensuing disruption to the nicotine business prompted one major financial institution to rank the impact of e-cigarettes in the same league as that of 3D printing.

    And it didn’t stop there. Tobacco companies went on to develop a host of additional reduced-risk technologies, such as tobacco-heating devices. Some even began applying their expertise in agronomy, product development and substance delivery to create nonrecreational products, such as vaccines, pharmaceuticals and therapeutic devices.

    Astonished by the radical transition taking place in the industry, and excited about what it promises for the future, Tobacco Reporter devote its entire April 2022 issue to the topic of innovation.

    In the Pipeline

    A glimpse at patent registrations shows what the future of tobacco harm reduction may look like.

    Seeking Synergies

    Tobacco firms are applying the expertise gained with reduced-risk products to new business areas.

    Unlikely Bedfellows

    How free-flowing data streams can help advance public health goals for nicotine products.

    All in the Mind

    A human-centric health ecosystem could unleash tobacco harm reduction’s full potential.

  • Topower Brings More Puffs and Better Battery

    Topower Brings More Puffs and Better Battery

    A new disposable vape battery solution was showcased during the World Vape Show Dubai, held from June 21-23.
    The pioneering power technology developed by FEELM, a subsidiary of the world’s largest atomization technology company Smoore, is intended for markets that allow higher puff counts and has been designed to increase the endurance of single-use devices.

    When compared to mainstream batteries, the new Topower offers 30 percent more capacity with the battery size remaining unchanged and can deliver over 6,000 puffs without needing to be recharged.

    Topower also provides a constant power output that reduces the loss of taste caused by voltage drop.

    FEELM says the new innovation also boasts the “longest shelf life in the industry,” according to a press release, promising just 1 percent power attenuation over six months and 3 percent over a year – which the brand says is 1/10th the level seen in traditional batteries.
    “This is our new battery technology customized for higher puff disposable vape, with large puff vaping without charging, ultimate-low discharge, ultimate-high energy density,” said Rex Zhang assistant president of FEELM. “The end goal for our industry is to create a smoke-free future and unburden adults from the harms of deadly cigarettes – technology is going to play a leading role in achieving this.”

    Zhang said the no-charge element of Topower was beneficial not just for brands, but for consumers as well. He said the battery solution eradicates the need for additional charging cables, which eliminates the necessity for internal charging devices and consequently saves on production costs.

    He also said consumers would no longer need to “worry about when and where they could next plug their disposable, which can reduce user anxieties and create a more convenient vaping experience,” according to the release.

    Topower has been incorporated into two solutions – FEELM Max’s ceramic coil disposable solution and Power Alpha‘s mesh coil solution.

    FEELM Max and Power Alpha have already been extensively commercialized and have achieved considerable success in multiple countries.

  • Special Report: Italy’s Tobacco Innovation Hub

    Special Report: Italy’s Tobacco Innovation Hub

    Photo: Stefanie Rossel

    Sale et tabacchi, the inscription on the logo of Italian tobacconist shops, still speaks of tobacco’s long history on the peninsula. It calls to mind the country’s monopoly on salt and tobacco in colonial times.

    Today, Italy is the European Union’s largest producer of leaf tobacco, with an annual production of 50 million kg, representing a market share of 27 percent. The country’s economic powerhouse in the north is home not only to leaf tobacco cultivation but also to leading cigarette companies’ and suppliers’ manufacturing sites, which continue to invest in the region.

    Philip Morris International has a state-of-the-art tobacco heating factory in Bologna, BAT recently inaugurated an innovation hub in Trieste, Tobacco Technology has a set up a flavorings lab in the region and Montrade is expanding its operations, to name just a few developments.

    In the runup to TabExpo Bologna 2023, Tobacco Reporter’s Stefanie Rossel traveled through northern Italy to learn about the tobacco industry’s latest investments. In this special report, she shares her insights.

    An Italian Flavor

    From its new subsidiary in Umbria, TTI can supply its global customers more efficiently and cost-effectively.

    Shaping Tomorrow

    The future envisioned by BAT will partially be created at the company’s new innovation hub in Trieste.

    Innovative Focus

    TabExpo returned to the nicotine show circuit in Bologna, Italy, in May with valuable industry insights.

    Innovation Hub

    Northern Italy provides the perfect business environment for pioneering tobacco companies and their suppliers.

  • Zovoo Dragbar Z700 GT Wins Red Dot Award

    Zovoo Dragbar Z700 GT Wins Red Dot Award

    Image: BusinessWire

    Zovoo has won a 2023 Red Dot Award for its Dragbar Z700 GT, which was recognized for its innovative design and exceptional functionality, according to BusinessWire.

    The Red Dot Award is organized by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Germany, recognizing outstanding products in various categories such as Industrial Design, Communication Design and Product Design.

  • BAT Design Chief Focuses on Simplicity

    BAT Design Chief Focuses on Simplicity

    Image: Tobacco Reporter archive

    Ken Kim, BAT’s design chief, is the first Korean to oversee the design process of all of BAT’s tobacco products, focusing on simplicity and the user experience, reports The Korea Herald.

    “My priority when designing heating tobacco products was that the item should become one of the three products that consumers can carry with them all the time, along with a phone and wallet,” said Kim during an interview.

    Kim said that with the latest product, Glo Hyper X2, he and his design team focused on the smallest details, like how consumers with different finger lengths could comfortably close the product’s iris shutter and the most convenient shape for switches used in iris shutters.

    “I also held a lot of meetings with the engineers to best design products that have the size and width to fit comfortably in consumers’ hands,” Kim added. “As such, we put a lot of effort into researching how to best design our products. We wondered if consumers will actually take notice of such efforts but concluded that for their satisfaction, this was a duty we must complete.”

    Kim highlighted the strengths of products with simple, refined designs. “Designs for a product is only complete when its function part has been fully supplemented,” said Kim.

  • Surfing while Juggling

    Surfing while Juggling

    photo: Anna Berdink

    Five types of innovation

    By Clive Bates

    Where does innovation in the tobacco and nicotine field come from? Is it the far-sighted senior executive assessing the needs of the evolving market and committing R&D budgets to realize the corporate vision? Or is it the genius scientists and engineers toiling 24/7 in the labs to invent the wonder product that will become The Next Big Thing?

    Both are caricatures, of course, but neither explains how innovation really works.

    In his brilliant book, How Innovation Works, author Matt Ridley points out that “Innovation is not an individual phenomenon but a collective, incremental and messy network phenomenon.” For those involved, I would say it is more like surfing while juggling than a straightforward path from idea to implementation. To see why, let’s look at five types of innovation in the tobacco and nicotine market.

    First, disruptive innovation. The most prominent recent case of disruptive innovation in the tobacco and nicotine field is the rise of electrical heating as an alternative to tobacco combustion to create an inhalable nicotine-bearing aerosol. Though the Chinese inventor Hon Lik is usually credited with inventing the e-cigarette, the truly disruptive innovation came before and from outside the tobacco and nicotine industry. It is what makes the e-cigarette and modern heated-tobacco products possible. The critical disruptive innovation was the lithium-ion battery. By the 2000s, battery technology had steadily progressed to achieve a sufficiently high power and energy density, allowing rapid heating and an adequately long life between recharges within a compact form factor. Developments in battery technology were driven by the demands of the giant and ultra-competitive markets for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

    For decades, the intense heat, complex reactions and chemical cocktail generated by the combustion of tobacco leaf at 900 degrees Celsius in the burning coal of a cigarette were unmatched and unmatchable as a means of delivering nicotine to the lungs. The combination of electrically heated coil and e-liquid to generate an aerosol is now competitive. The disruption of the dominance of the cigarette, currently underway and likely to last two decades to three decades, is driven by a fundamental energy transition that degrades the advantage of combustion.

    I refer to the second type as system innovation. This is the consequential economic, regulatory and public health reaction to the initial disruption and may involve hundreds of innovative responses. For example, the emergence of e-cigarettes triggered a creative response in the Stop Smoking Service in the city of Leicester, U.K. Under the leadership of its manager, Louise Ross, the service changed its practice to embrace vaping as a low-risk alternative to smoking that could appeal to many smokers who had previously been beyond the service’s reach. Through the power of example, that experience led to further innovation at the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training and with the government’s support to guidance on e-cigarettes issued by the National Health Service.

    But this innovation did not happen linearly, driven only by personal inspiration. It is best seen as “emergent,” arising from a wide range of concurrent changes and influences triggered within the public health ecosystem. The disruptive innovation also led to system innovations in regulation, such as the 2014 European Union Tobacco Products Directive. In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s deeming rule brought vaping products into the definition of tobacco products and under the jurisdiction of the Tobacco Control Act. The initial disruptive innovation also led to innovation in the business models of tobacco companies, but also in the tactics of their traditional adversaries. Tobacco companies started moving their business toward a future in noncombustible nicotine products, and the anti-tobacco groups shifted their focus from preventing disease to fighting nicotine addiction.

    For tobacco and nicotine companies, the disruptive innovation and the system responses it triggers are like a “big wave,” both prized and feared by top surfers. Like a wave, the companies didn’t create it and can’t control it, but their challenge is to catch it, ride it well and not wipe out. The case of Kodak and its destruction under the breaking wave of digital photography is probably the most cited case of an innovation wipeout. But it doesn’t have to be a technology shift. In the 1970s, deregulation in the aviation sector enabled the emergence of the innovative low-cost airline business model. It wasn’t long before major airline incumbents were going under as that big wave gathered pace.

    The disruptive and systems innovations generate a changing paradigm: a big wave of opportunity or destruction that businesses must learn to surf. But why does innovation feel like juggling while surfing? The juggling reflects the frenetic activity of keeping a company moving, in financial balance and ahead of its rivals while it navigates a radically changing context. This brings us to three further types of innovation: the innovation occurring within the changing paradigm.

    So, the third type of innovation is evolutionary. It resembles the Darwinist process of evolution in nature. Here, the consumer provides what evolutionary biologists call selection pressure, and innovation emerges from incremental improvement through trial and error, mirroring what biologists recognize as mutation and natural selection. It will usually be incremental, but its impact will not always be gradual. Evolutionary innovation can make radical inroads into a market by solving a particular problem or exploiting an opportunity.

    A good example is pod-based vaping products using nicotine salts. Salts change how nicotine is absorbed in the airways and allow users to consume smaller volumes of higher strength liquids. The effect of the salts is to allow high-strength nicotine liquids to be used without undue harshness with a smaller battery and tank, enabling a compact and convenient device. This addressed the challenge of providing a convenient and discreet product with effective nicotine delivery. It was wildly successful—at least where regulators allowed it.

    I have seen much handwringing about the recent rise of disposable vaping products. But this is another case of evolutionary innovation. The disposables solve the problem of finding a quick and convenient way into vaping for smokers in the early or tentative stages of switching away from smoking. They are simple to use, low cost and convenient. They don’t require an upfront investment in a device, so they lower the cost of consumer trial and experimentation. Like many innovations, these products have downsides, such as the waste generated. But this is manageable and must be set against the potential benefits and in context with other waste material flows.

    The fourth type of innovation is adaptive. This is a variation of evolutionary innovation, but it arises in response to regulation. Ultimately, it is driven by meeting consumer preferences, but it is triggered by regulatory interventions that would otherwise compromise the consumer experience—ether by design or as an unintended consequence. One example is the mentholation cards that emerged after the European Union ban on menthol-flavored cigarettes. These are inserted into cigarette packs to infuse nonmenthol cigarettes with menthol flavor. Another case is the “shortfill” e-liquid containers that became popular as a workaround to overcome the European Union ban on e-liquid containers of more than 10 mL volume. Much larger containers of nicotine-free vaping liquid are sold only partially filled, allowing the nicotine to be added later—often from nicotine liquids stronger than permitted in the EU.

    As the FDA imposed ever more burdensome regulation on nicotine vapes, small companies introduced synthetic nicotine products because the law confined FDA jurisdiction to nicotine derived from tobacco. This example also illustrates the arms race fought between adaptive innovators and responsive regulators. By March 2022, the FDA had prompted Congress to amend the Tobacco Control Act to apply to nicotine derived from any source, not just tobacco. Adaptive innovations can come with novel risks. For example, regulated bans on flavored e-liquids may lead to consumers adding food or aromatherapy flavoring agents not necessarily intended for vaping.

    The fifth type of innovation is user-driven. The early vaping enthusiasts were hybrid producer-consumers, interacting on user forums with a strong problem-solving ethos and a hands-on approach to product design and construction. Users created innovations like “squonkers” or “squonk mods” to facilitate dripping, a niche style of vaping, by incorporating a flexible liquid bottle into the design of the vaping device. But the most impressive innovations from the user side have been social and community in nature. The vaping forums and vape meets created an elaborate technical and moral support infrastructure. This online community blossomed into vape shops as centers of expertise, personalization and encouragement. The vape shops are now de facto cutting-edge stop-smoking services but with a very different offer to the more clinical settings of traditional services. Even the biggest corporate beasts benefit and learn from user innovation. They should take care not to crush it.

    Innovation is a fluid and dynamic business phenomenon with many simultaneously moving parts embedded in an unpredictably evolving, threatening or promising context. Surfing while juggling is hard and risky, but it is no longer a choice in the tobacco and nicotine business.

    Clive Bates is the director of Counterfactual Consulting and the former director of Action on Smoking and Health (U.K.).
  • Derek Yach on TR’s Special Innovation Issue

    Derek Yach on TR’s Special Innovation Issue

    The renowned global health expert explains how innovation represents the single biggest opportunity to lower the health toll of tobacco use.

    By Taco Tuinstra

    Until recently, few people would have mentioned the words “tobacco” and “innovation” in the same sentence. Even as other legacy industries started disrupting their respective operations, the tobacco industry remained content to milk its tried-and-tested business model and count on the habit-forming properties of nicotine to sustain its business.

    That has changed dramatically over the past 15 years. Advances in technology, together with shifting attitudes, have turned the once-staid nicotine business into a cutting-edge innovator. The modern e-cigarette was not invented by the tobacco industry, but when it started making inroads around 2008, the industry recognized its potential and devoted considerable resources to its perfection. The ensuing disruption to the nicotine business prompted one major financial institution to rank the impact of e-cigarettes in the same league as that of 3D printing.

    And it didn’t stop there. Tobacco companies went on to develop a host of additional reduced-risk technologies, such as tobacco-heating devices. Some even began applying their expertise in agronomy, product development and substance delivery to create nonrecreational products, such as vaccines, pharmaceuticals and therapeutic devices.

    The topic of innovation has always been dear to Tobacco Reporter’s heart. Not only have we covered it frequently in our columns; we have also created a competition dedicated to industry innovation—the Golden Leaf Awards.

    Astonished by the radical transition taking place in the industry, and excited about what it promises for the future, Tobacco Reporter decided to devote an entire issue to the topic of innovation.

    To ensure the topic would be treated with the breadth and depth it deserves, we partnered with one of the world’s most prominent advocates for public health progress through innovation: Derek Yach. Formerly with the World Health Organization and the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, Derek was deeply involved in the creation of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control—a document that was prepared when King Combustible still ruled supreme.

    Since leaving the WHO, Derek has spent much of his time encouraging health authorities to recognize the unique public health opportunity presented by innovation, urging them to accommodate, rather than frustrate, new technologies.

    Tobacco Reporter spoke with Derek about Tobacco Reporter’s special issue and the importance of innovation.

    Taco Tuinstra is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial director.Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, he coordinates the work of staff writers and contributors.On his watch, Tobacco Reporter has won several awards for editorial excellence.Since joining the magazine in 1997, Taco has visited more than 75 countries to meet industry representatives in their markets and to report tobacco news firsthand.
  • The Promise of Innovation

    The Promise of Innovation

    Photo: Lezinav

    Nicotine companies are helping tobacco users move from deadly combustible cigarettes to substantially reduced-risk products.

    By Derek Yach 

    Over the past few decades, we have seen unprecedented progress across a wide range of technologies—digital and info tech, biotech, AgroSciences, material sciences and more. These are transforming many sectors considered “legacy,” “dirty” and simply out of fashion. The tobacco sector epitomizes many of the changes underway. The April 2022 edition of Tobacco Reporter highlights the diversity and speed of the change. From finding new uses for the tobacco plant, to ending exposure to toxic substances linked to combustion in cigarettes, to finding ways to design the emerging products to be biodegradable or recyclable, to limiting youth access—innovation pervades this classic, dirty legacy sector.

    Evolution of THR Technologies

    In an insightful article, Mike Huml outlines the role of hobbyists and smokers in seeking solutions to cutting toxic exposures (see “Major Milestones”). Driven by their passion, an entire new set of products with myriad components, a new language and, later, vape stores have arisen. Their role has been crucial in showing what is possible, what is desired and what can be achieved when advances in electronics, aerosolization, batteries and coils are combined into new consumer products.

    Thousands of miles away from where the first large groups of users of these new products live in Shenzhen, China, new companies have taken up the opportunity and drawn on the Silicon Valley-like spirit that pervades the city to develop core components and completed products now at the heart of the e-cigarette and heated-tobacco revolutions. Until recently, companies like Shenzhen Smoore Technology, ALD and other vapor hardware suppliers were unknown in Europe and the United States; today, they are household names in the nicotine business. Their investments in research will increasingly become visible as future products emerge.

    As with any successful innovation, the larger established tobacco companies have invested billions of dollars to create tobacco harm reduction (THR) products that appeal to smokers and pass the muster of regulators, such as the  U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Their continued investment in research, patent filings and product launches mean that we now have over 100 million users of reduced-risk products—but that is less than 10 percent of the real target! More progress requires that state monopolies, who together account for one in two cigarettes sold globally, join the innovators.

    Next Frontiers for Farmers and the Environment?

    Farmers. Advances in our understanding of plant genomics initially helped to produce more environmentally resilient and productive tobacco plants and the ability to adjust nicotine levels. This has now given way to using the tobacco plant to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, a range of pharmaceuticals, wound-healing products and a range of domestic products for clothing, skin care and more! In his article “The Virtuous Weed,” Taco Tuinstra gives a hint of what is to come. These advances, however, will provide only a few tobacco farmers with alternative livelihoods. The speed of switching away from combustibles and high levels of quitting combined with the growth of demand for synthetic nicotine come together to make it more urgent to support the most vulnerable tobacco farmers’ transition to alternative livelihoods.

    THR and the Environment. The growing concern about the impact of plastic pollution on the environment has led to the start of negotiations of a new United Nations resolution on greening plastics. The initiative will take two years to three years, will be legally binding and will push the pace of change in addressing alternatives to plastics like never before. Electronic cigarettes and heated-tobacco products will not escape scrutiny. They contain a wide range of nonbiodegradable components, including plastics, batteries and heavy metals. The rapid increase in disposable vapes and pods has not been accompanied by serious efforts to tackle this problem—until now!

    ALD Group, a Shenzhen-based company, has been actively reviewing various studies and found from the Truth Initiative that 51 percent of e-cigarette users throw their empty pods or disposable devices in the regular trash, 43 percent do the same with their empty batteries, about 17 percent put both in the regular recycling bin, and about the same percentage throw them away or send them for recycling.

    ALD Group’s response is to use biodegradable materials whenever possible and to develop recycling solutions within an integrated environmental management approach based on international standards, such as ISO 14001. The company appears to be adapting best practices from Nespresso on pod design, recycling and disposal as well as from leading beverage companies that have shifted almost exclusively to biodegradable products in the sale of their beverages.

    ALD’s investments in research and development in biodegradability are beginning to pay off. This comes at a time when consumer and regulatory concerns about the environmental impact of risk-reducing product waste have increased.

    Continued Progress on the Transformation Road Demands More Private-Public Partnerships

     In a recent editorial, Nature highlighted the value of industry- academic collaboration in the context of Covid-19 vaccines. This edition shows how massive investments by nicotine companies—large and small—in research, technology development and consumer  insights are delivering alternatives to deadly combustibles and displacing them faster than ever before.

    THR advocate David Sweanor mentions several areas that require additional attention if private-public collaboration is to be achieved: mechanisms for researchers to access industry data and how to apportion intellectual property (see “From Coercion to Empowerment”) None of these are impossible. All require individual companies to find ways to work together on issues of public health and environmental benefit.

    The Nature editorial calls for barriers to collaboration to be dismantled as much as possible. That lesson has yet to penetrate the walls of leading groups like the World Health Organization, academic and research bodies and scientific journals in relation to THR. Bans, prohibitions and ad hominem attacks of tobacco industry and related scientists chills dialogue, slows innovation and seriously hampers progress toward ending smoking and the death and disease it causes.

    This edition shows that despite these barriers, substantial, unstoppable progress is underway—that progress could accelerate if engagement replaced these barriers. The beneficiaries would be millions of smokers seeking better solutions and longer, healthier lives.

    Derek Yach has been a global health expert and anti-smoking advocate for more than 30 years. Throughout his career, he has supported and led smoking cessation research and policy development and has been a strong proponent of harm reduction policies,

    Previously, Yach was the director of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, and a World Health Organization cabinet director and executive director for noncommunicable diseases and mental health. He was deeply involved with the development of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.