The Forever Lobbying Project investigated an ongoing orchestrated lobbying and disinformation campaign by the PFAS industry and its allies, with the aim of watering down an EU proposal to ban “forever chemicals” and shifting the burden of environmental pollution onto society.
The cross-border, interdisciplinary investigation reveals for the first time the staggering cost of cleaning PFAS contamination in Europe if emissions remain unrestricted: €2 trillion over a 20-year period, an annual bill of €100 billion. If the polluters do not pay, then who will?
Manufactured by a handful of companies, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a family of over 10,000 man-made chemicals. Almost indestructible without human intervention and persistent in living organisms, humans included, PFAS have been linked to a dozen illnesses.
According to scientists, regulators, and civil society, the “poison of the century” has created the worst pollution crisis humanity has ever faced.
The cross-border investigation ‘Forever Lobbying Project’ was coordinated by Le Monde and involved 46 journalists and 29 media partners from 16 countries: RTBF (Belgium); Denik Referendum (Czech Republic); Investigative Reporting Denmark (Denmark); YLE (Finland); Le Monde and France Télévisions (France); MIT Technology Review Germany, NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung, (Germany); Reporters United (Greece); L'Espresso, RADAR Magazine, Facta.eu, Il Bo Live and Lavialibera (Italy); Investico, De Groene Amsterdammer and Financieele Dagblad (the Netherlands); Klassekampen (Norway); Oštro (Slovenia); DATADISTA / elDiario.es (Spain); Sveriges Radio and Dagens ETC (Sweden); SRF (Switzerland); The Black Sea (Turkey); Watershed Investigations / The Guardian (UK), with a publishing partnership with Arena for Journalism in Europe, and in collaboration with lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory.
The investigation is based on over 14,000 previously unpublished documents on “forever chemicals” PFAS. The work included filing 184 freedom of information requests, 66 of which were shared with the team by Corporate Europe Observatory.
The investigation expanded on the ‘expert-reviewed’ journalism experiment pioneered in 2023 with the Forever Pollution Project by forming an expert group of 18 international academics and lawyers.
The project received financial support from the Pulitzer Center, the Broad Reach Foundation, Journalismfund Europe, and IJ4EU. Website: https://foreverpollution.eu.
