A Switch To E-Cigarettes Is Helping Save The Amazon Rain Forest

The UK’s premium e-cigarette brand SMOKO goes green to become what is believed to be the world’s first carbon negative vaping company

Having an e-cigarette is not only better for your health – it can also help protect the planet.

In what is believed to be a world-first, Tunbridge Wells e-cigarette company SMOKO has unveiled a raft of strategies to offset their carbon footprint, while supporting important areas of biodiversity around the world.

Teaming up with Ecologi, the Kent-based e-cigarette company is supporting carbon offset programmes such as protecting the Amazon rain forest in Peru and Brazil, a solar power project in India, a landfill gas capture project in Thailand and a wind farm in Turkey.

The company is also supporting the planting mangrove trees off the coast of Madagascar. Mangroves capture more than four times the amount of carbon per acre than temperate and tropical rain forests and are important nurseries for tropical fish. Mangrove forests fringe many coastal areas and provide shelter and nurseries for ¾ of all tropical fish.

As of July, SMOKO has helped plant more than 10,500 mangrove trees, which will offset more than 3,100 tonnes of carbon in the years to come, the equivalent of removing almost 8 million miles worth of car journeys!

The company has also prevented almost 250 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere through its carbon offset programmes.

And they are not stopping there – SMOKO gets 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, partners with green suppliers and encourages their customers to return their used refills and batteries for recycling. All SMOKO packaging is recyclable.

SMOKO co-founder Mike Cameron explains that the company works hard to help customers quit smoking tobacco and switch to a product which is dramatically less harmful and more affordable. In the past eight years, SMOKO has saved its customers more than £75 million from literally going up in smoke and prevented the consumption of more than 200 million cigarettes.

“While we have hit these impressive milestones with our customers’ help, we wanted to ensure we are doing everything we can to reduce our company’s impact on the world around us. So, we have taken a look at our environmental footprint and CO2 emissions,” Mr Cameron says.

SMOKO worked with CarbonFootprint.com to calculate its carbon emissions footprint, looking at everything from electricity consumption to emissions from worldwide shipping and delivery vans that bring SMOKO direct to their customers' front door.

“For 2019, we over-estimated our footprint to be approximately 62.5 tonnes of CO2, but becoming carbon neutral didn’t feel like we were doing enough,” Mr Cameron explains. “So, we have committed to offsetting 246 tonnes (that's about four times our annual carbon footprint) of CO2 for 2019 and will continue to offset our footprint in the years to come.”

Mr Cameron, who co-founded SMOKO with singer/songwriter Daisy Hicks, acknowledges that there is still more to be done. “These are just some of the steps we are taking from our end to ensure that, as we continue to deliver SMOKO to our customers as quickly and efficiently as possible, we are reducing our impact on the environment as a carbon negative e-cigarette brand,” he says.

Find out more about SMOKO’s carbon offset projects here.

About SMOKO

SMOKO is the UK’s premium e-cigarette company. Launched in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 2012, co-founders Daisy Hicks and Mike Cameron named their business after the traditional Australian word for “taking a quick break”, a nod to their time spent living Down Under.

SMOKO is one of the only e-cigarette brands in the world to use the highest quality, pharmaceutical-grade, which are mixed and manufactured in the UK, before being tested above all current UK standards to ensure customers get the absolute best product available on the market. All of SMOKO’s e-liquids are Made in the UK.