The Forever Lobbying Project sheds light on the PFAS industry’s organized efforts to weaken an EU proposal to ban “forever chemicals.” These toxic substances, found in everyday products, are linked to cancer, hormone disruption, and infertility. In close collaboration with scientists, the findings of the cross-border team of journalists reached an analysis estimating that, without a ban, the cost of cleaning up PFAS contamination in Europe could reach €100 billion annually.
Collaboration Between Journalists and Scientists
The Forever Lobbying Project expands on the innovative concept of “expert-reviewed journalism”. This approach integrates the expertise of academics and legal specialists into the journalistic process to enhance accuracy and depth.
For this investigation, 46 journalists from 16 countries collaborated with 18 international experts in environmental chemistry, law, and criminology. The team analyzed over 14,000 documents, collected through 184 freedom of information requests and contributions from civic society groups. This collaboration was instrumental in revealing how industry lobbyists use fear and misinformation to block the proposed EU ban and shift the costs of PFAS pollution onto society.
The Investigation’s Findings
The Forever Lobbying Project suggests how the PFAS industry is lobbying to prevent a comprehensive ban proposed in February 2023 under the EU chemical regulation REACH.
The investigation describes how industry representatives employ tactics such as spreading disinformation and exaggerating economic risks for the industry. These methods are reminiscent of strategies used by other industries, including tobacco and fossil fuels, to delay regulation.
Sthéphane Horel, Le Monde journalist, co-initiator, and project coordinator, highlights the importance of collaborative journalism in addressing global challenges like PFAS pollution: “Our project was unique in many ways. For a year, we worked as a small laboratory of ideas to push back the boundaries of journalism using collective intelligence.”
“It is also the first cross-border effort of this scale to use Freedom of Information requests across Europe to shed light on the blind spots in the requirement for transparency in European democracies. We also drew on our cross-border resources to collect data in each country, enabling us to calculate the staggering cost of cleaning up PFAS. This is something that has never been attempted. Even by the European Commission, which has more resources than we do.”
The Forever Lobbying Project is supported by 29 media partners and funded by the Pulitzer Center, the Broad Reach Foundation, Journalismfund Europe, and IJ4EU.
The Forever Lobbying Project investigation builds upon the Forever Pollution Project, an earlier, extensive investigation mapping contamination of European sites by PFAS, which involved 16 newsrooms and revealed nearly 23,000 PFAS-contaminated sites across Europe.
Explore the findings of the Forever Lobbying Project at https://foreverpollution.eu. Learn about the methodology, uncover the data, and see how journalists and scientists worked together to expose the truth about PFAS lobbying.