15.01.2025 | Fundamental right
The Forever Lobbying Project exposes how industry is undermining the PFAS ban
For more than a year The Forever Lobbying Project research done on a coordinated lobbying and disinformation campaign through the PFAS industry and its allies. Their goal? Watering down the European proposal to ban 'forever chemicals' and the shifting the costs of environmental damage to society.
For the first time this reveals cross-border and interdisciplinary research the staggering costs of cleaning up PFAS pollution in Europe if emissions are not limited:
- €2 trillion over 20 years
- €100 billion per year
If the polluters don't pay, who will?
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are produced by a handful of chemical companies and form a family of more than 10,000 Man-Made ChemicalsWithout human intervention, these substances almost indestructible and they remain survival in living organisms, including humansThey are associated with numerous serious diseases.
According to scientists, regulators and civil society organisations have these “toxins of the century” led to the worst environmental pollution crisis humanity has ever known.
In February 2023 served five European countries a proposal for a universal PFAS ban under the EU Chemical Regulation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals). This ban would apply to the complete PFAS chemical family, with some exceptions until alternatives are available.
In response to this, hundreds of companies, spread across some 15 sectors, will start lobbying on a large scale with European policymakers to support the proposal weaken or even completely torpedo.
How the industry sows doubt
Immediately scientific approach from journalistic research to lobbyism and disinformation, published the Forever Lobbying Project on January 14, 2025 an in-depth analysis of the main arguments of the PFAS lobby. The conclusion? Many of these arguments are fear-mongering, misleading, false or even potentially dishonest.
The research reveals how industry lobbyists use classic influencing techniques from the corporate world, similar to those that have been deployed for decades to protect the interests of the tobacco industry, fossil fuels and chemical pesticides to defend. The public debate about PFAS is now polluted by these 'merchants of doubt'.
Expert-reviewed journalism
The project builds on the concept of “expert-reviewed journalism”, which was introduced in 2023 at the Forever Pollution ProjectThis time they worked 18 international academics and lawyers together, spread over Zurich, Stockholm, Toronto, Rotterdam and other cities, with expertise in environmental chemistry, criminology and law.
The journalists developed a method to test the lobby arguments in collaboration with:
- Gary Fooks (University of Bristol, UK)
- Ali Ling (University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, USA)
- Hans Peter Arp (Norwegian University of Science and Technology & Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Norway)
Largest PFAS database ever made public
Together with the EU lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory and the PFAS Project Lab the team collected more than 14,000 unpublished documents on PFAS, with which this the largest collection of PFAS-related documents in the world is.
This unique collection is now publicly accessible in:
- The Industry Documents Library of the University of California, San Francisco—known for the infamous “Tobacco Papers”
- The Toxic Docs database by Columbia University and the City University of New York
These revelations once again highlight how the chemical industry is doing everything it can to prevent a ban on PFAS—with disastrous consequences for public health and the environment.
English 
Nederlands (België)