The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), which receives funding from Philip Morris International (PMI), has called for proposals for a Smoke-Free Index that it said will track and report critically on tobacco industry progress in shifting consumers away from combustible cigarettes, according to a FSFW press release.

The FSFW, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to improve global health by ending cigarette smoking and accelerating a shift to reduced-risk tobacco products, said the index will “critically evaluate industry progress toward achieving a smoke-free world and assess actions taken to undermine that progress”.
FSFW said the index will complement the mission of the World Health Organisation’s tobacco control treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, by examining how the tobacco industry can play a part in ending cigarette consumption by offering lower risk tobacco products.
FSFW said the index will offer “quantifiable evidence” of how tobacco companies are acting to transform the industry.
“Senior global health leaders have started to acknowledge the importance of tobacco industry transformation and what this means for how we engage in building solutions,” Dr Derek Yach, who heads the Foundation, was quoted as saying. “It is long overdue that tobacco companies use their leverage in the market to assert greater influence on each other to act far more decisively to end the use of combustible cigarettes globally.”
The Foundation’s call for proposals from research organisations to develop the Index can be found here.