“We continued to grow throughout the year, adding new members in all our membership categories.”
The UK Vaping Industry Association has published its latest annual report outlining its activities and achievements for 2022.
In what was yet another exciting and challenging year for the vape industry, the UKVIA was at the forefront of representing its members’ interests both at home and abroad.
The report covers many of the biggest topics of the year, including:
The August publication of the Khan Review into the Government’s 2030 smoke-free ambitions which highlighted how that target would be missed would be missed by at least seven years and in December, Cancer Research UK warned that it had veered further off track to 2039.
Dr Javed Khan’s report said the Government needed to ‘embrace the promotion of vaping as an effective tool to help people to quit smoking tobacco’ as one of its four ‘critical’ recommendations.
Vaping’s huge potential to help the UK’s 6.6m smokers quit and the barriers which must be overcome to allow this to happen were among the topics raised at the UKVIA’s 2022 Forum held in November.
Negative reporting about vaping in the mainstream media is one of the barriers and this was highlighted by UKVIA Director General John Dunne in his introduction to the 2022 Annual Report.
He said: “Our Forum2022 conference heard that the modern vape devices produced by the industry are hugely popular with smokers and have the potential to secure a smoke-free future for our country.
“But far too many smokers are failing to switch to an alternative that is 95% less harmful than cigarettes because of the scare stories in the media that make them believe that vaping is just as bad as smoking.
“This misinformation is literally costing lives and we must work harder than ever to ensure that we counter these dangerous and irresponsible stories.”
The Director General also welcomed the recent Office of National Statistics (ONS) report which said that vaping had played a ‘major role’ in bringing UK smoking rates down to an all-time low of just 13.3%.
He added: “The same report said that vaping was at a record high of four million, so if we can tackle the misinformation which is stopping smokers from switching, there is no reason why we can’t aim for five million vapers by this time next year.”
In summing up the year, Dunne said: “I want to take this opportunity to thank all the UKVIA members for the amazing work they have done in 2022 and I am sure that 2023 will be just as demanding, if not even more so.
“We continued to grow throughout the year, adding new members in all our membership categories and it is fantastic that we have such a diverse and vocal membership base which does so much to support the UK vaping industry.”
Amongst the highlights of 2022 was the launch of the UKVIA-commissioned Economic Impact Report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) which – for the first time – detailed the national and regional contribution that the UK vape industry made to the economy.
It revealed that the direct economic impacts when combined with the boost to the supply chain and the spending power of vape sector workers all combined to bring a £2.8bn boost to the economy.
In addition, the health benefits brought about by smokers switching to vaping are estimated to have saved the NHS more than £300m in 2019 alone and the UK vape industry contributed revenues of £310m to the Exchequer through taxation in 2021.
The annual VApril campaign reached a record audience last year and the combined UKVIA Forum, Vape Celebration Dinner and Industry Recognition Awards was a huge success.
The UKVIA continued to grow throughout the year and we are now tantalisingly close to breaking the 100 member barrier.
We also participated in government consultations on future vaping policy both at home and within the EU and will continue this important work to represent the industry and highlight the need for proportionate regulation which will allow governments to help meet their smoke-free goals.
Dunne said: “Our industry is under scrutiny like never before and we must tackle the big issues such as under-age vaping, the environmental impact of disposable devices and the massive influx of fake and illegal imports.
“Any one of these issues has the potential to see regulators clamp down hard on vaping and the fact that they are all happening at once demonstrates that it is crucial that we get our house in order without delay.”
You can view the UKVIA Annual Report 2022 here.
ENDS