The corporate fight against PFAS restriction

In this episode, Vicky Cann, campaigner and researcher at CEO, explains how her huge report "Chemical reaction - Inside the corporate fight against the EU’s PFAS restriction" came to be and what were the most shocking results she unveiled. It can be read here.

You can also watch a video version of this podcast here:

Who we are

This podcast is produced by CEO and Counter Balance. Both NGOs raise awareness on the importance of good governance in the EU by researching issues like lobbying of large and powerful industries, corporate capture of decision making, corruption, fraud, human rights violations in areas like Big Tech, agro-business, biotech & chemical companies, the financial sector & public investment banks, trade, energy & climate, scientific research and much more…

You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Stay tuned for more independent and in-depth information that concerns every EU citizen!

Transcript of the episode (there might be slight changes to the final audio version)

Hi, welcome! I’m Joana Louçã, comms officer at corporate Europe observatory.
On today’s episode, I’ll talk to my colleague Vicky Cann, who has just released a huge report about PFAS, the forever chemicals. This is a very special investigation, as our findings concur with the cross-border investigation #ForeverLobbying Project,  which came out the same day. The project was coordinated by Le Monde and involvied 46 journalists and 29 media partners from 16 different countries, in collaboration with us, Corporate Europe Observatory. This investigation was one year in the making and is based on 14,000 previously unpublished documents on PFAS. So, yeah, we’re very proud of it. If you are interested on this topic, subscribe to our other podcast: What’s going wrong and how to put right, as we will shortly have a second season all about PFAS. Without further ado, I leave you with my conversation with Vicky Cann, thank you for listening!

You've just launched a report that took a long time to make and it's very exciting and at the same time equally worrying. So could you start from the beginning and maybe just explain what are PFAS and why are they called Forever Chemicals?

Yes, so PFAS have been around since the 1940s, in fact, they are a class or a group of manmade chemicals. And what group these chemicals together is the fact that they are very persistent. They accumulate in our bodies, and are persistent in the environment as well. And this persistence is one of the reasons why they're so popular by industry, used in many consumer products and many industrial processes. But it is always also the problem that we have with them, this persistence, because once they are made, once they are in the environment or once they're in our bodies, it is very hard to... get rid of them and that's why we call them forever chemicals. And the kind of substances that we're talking about are things like Teflon, Scotchgard, they are chemicals which are, as I say, hard wearing, but they also have useful characteristics like they're nonstick or they can be waterproof. But, and there are perhaps 10,000, even more of these different chemicals, but all with this same characteristic of being persistent. That is what makes them really, really problematic to us. The kind of products that we're talking about, where you might find them, is in your non-stick frying pan, waterproof coats, but also things like refrigerators, air conditioning, industrial processes and factories, so machinery, and even in things like asthma inhalers. So they are really widely used and that adds to the problematic nature of this issue. These chemicals are used very, very widely. They are very persistent and we already have accumulated a huge amount of PFAS, forever pollution, in Europe and indeed around the world.

And what are the consequences of having PFAS in our bodies to our health? 

Well, they are linked to a number of different health problems. They're linked to cancer, to liver damage, to hormone disruption. PFAS are thought to be in pretty much all of our blood streams and particularly for communities who are close to PFAS hotspots and those might be perhaps chemical plants where these products are made or used, or around military sites or airports, because these products are also in firefighting foams, which are used in military and aviation sites. If you live in one of these hotspots, then obviously the risk is even higher to your personal health. The other thing I want to really stress about this though is that it's not just about physical health. I think it's also about our mental wellbeing because I think slowly these communities that are in these hotspots have become aware of these problems. And actually PFAS is all around them. It's in drinking water, it's in soils, it's in the air that they breathe. vegetables that they might grow in their garden, not to eat eggs that their domestic chickens might be producing because of the extent of the contamination. I think there's a real emotional burden and distress that comes from living in that situation. For mothers, as one example, actually they can pass on this contamination through their breast milk, or through carrying babies in the womb. So it's a physical risk, but also I think a mental health burden as well.

Definitely, and that is often not really taken into account. But tell me a bit about this research. How did it start? What kind of was the spark to... for it to begin and what is so special about it? Because you usually don't take so long to produce a report. So what is particular about this research? 
So as we know, hopefully listeners know, we've been working to expose corporate lobbying in different sectors for 27, 28 years now. And we've worked on chemicals for a number of those years. And in 2023, we produced a study which started to look at the lobbying around this EU proposal to try and ban PFAS across Europe, unless there is a good reason. They are used in critical uses and there are not safe alternatives. So we've been working on this issue for a while. Also in 2023, a brilliant network of journalists called the Forever Pollution Project, which is led by Le Monde in France, but brings together journalists in many other countries, they produced a very innovative form of journalism in that they started to map forever pollution, PFAS pollution across Europe to show the extent of this of this problem that we face. And the project that's launched in January is the next phase of the Forever Pollution project. It's called the Forever Lobbying Project now as a follow-up to the original. And it brings together journalists, but also this time us as well, because actually when we... we were thinking about what future research we would like to do on PFAS, we had the same idea as some of the journalists, that it would be really important to map the lobbying that is happening on this proposal at the EU level and to do it in a quite a systematic way with us taking the EU level view and journalists across Europe looking at the national level. So, yes, indeed, we've been working on this for a year now. We've put in many, many access to documents requests at the Brussels level, but also journalists have done that at the national level, I think 180 or more in total. We've generated thousands of documents that have informed the project.

But I also think this project on the... behalf of the journalists on the part of the journalists has also been very innovative because they've gone one step further as well. It's not just a reporting project. They have also really sought to interrogate a couple of areas. So building on the work that they had already done in terms of mapping the contamination of Europe, they have now come up with some figures that show the cost of trying to clean up the pollution across Europe. And the figure is astronomical. It runs into the trillions over 20 years or more. And actually is part of the argument as to why we cannot keep producing PFAS, because we are just building up a huge pollution burden and we cannot afford and clean it up. 
But the second innovative aspect, I think, of what the journalists have done is that they have really sought to interrogate the arguments that industry are using in their lobbying to try and delay or derail this proposal that the EU is moving forward with. So they have done what is called a stress test on the arguments that industry is using and to try to expose the spin, the misleading nature of what some of what industry has been saying on PFAS and on the legislative, the regulatory proposal. And I think that's more reasons why this project is interesting and really very cutting edge, I would say.

And you've mentioned already some of the results from the project, namely the cost that it will take to clean up the PFAS hotspots, the PFAS contamination. But what are our main results? 

So we've done a mapping of the industry lobby campaign, particularly targeting the European Commission, but we've looked at some other institutions as well. And we've seen that even though at this point in the process to regulate PFAS, actually the Commission should just be acting as an observer to this process because it's the EU Chemicals Agency, also known as ECCA, which is in the lead right now. So even though the Commission is only an observer in the process, they will play a big role later on, but they are being targeted now by industry at a very, I would say, intense level. So we have seen a lot of lobbying by industry, you know, the usual face-to-face lobbying meetings, emails, that kind of meeting, events, that kind of very... if you like, bread and butter form of lobbying. 

We've seen industry mobilising some of their allies. This particularly applies to the PFAS producers themselves, the chemicals companies. They have been mobilising their supply chains. The companies which then take the PFAS and put them into clothing or computer chips or renewable energy or other products. They've been mobilising these other industries to try to create echo chambers for their own messaging. They've been using a lot of law firms and lobby consultancies to bring in more capacity and to try to find new ways to reach the decision makers. They've been funding science, if you like, industry-favourable studies and they've been sponsoring scientific articles, which have appeared in scientific journals, but have been written by industry players themselves. And I think those, unfortunately, those studies and the articles have really been reused and recirculated and relied upon a lot by industry in their arguments and I think have been accepted, unfortunately, by a lot of decision makers. 

And then they've also been trying to come up with ways to oppose the restriction that is being planned, which is ambitious, by instead trying to distract attention from that by promoting their own favourite schemes, which are perhaps voluntary and much less tough than the restriction, than the ban would be. So promoting voluntary schemes, recognising that there is a PFAS problem, but instead promoting an industry friendly way of dealing with it rather than the much tougher regulation. 

The kind of actors that we've been talking about are the PFAS chemical companies themselves, some of which are known names and some of which might not be names known to everybody. We're talking about companies like Chemours, Honeywell, AGC Chemicals, a number of others that are published in our report, but also trade associations as well that represent those companies in different ways. And that includes the big chemical industry lobby, CEFIC, and also Plastics Europe. 

Now, not all companies and not all of the trade associations have had the same tactics and the same messaging even, but collectively, I think they have had a big impact, unfortunately. I think it's long overdue for this lobbying to come to be exposed for what it is and for us to try to reset the narrative about the PFAS regulation and to reclaim it in the interests of health and environment and the public interest.

Chemours is probably the most influential of the players that you mentioned in the report. Although their name is not known to most people, I would say, they are actually a spin-off from the more well-known Dupont company, right? 

Yes, that's right. Chemours was spun off from Dupont, so now it's a separate company. It's US based, but also has an EU base in Switzerland. And Chemours came out of DuPont when DuPont, I think, was starting to realise some of the issues and the legal liabilities that their PFAS substances had. So they were moved into this separate company called Chemours. And that's where Chemours is the producer of Teflon and other PFAS. So when we looked at the different industry players, it really struck us that Chemours was really one of the most active. They've been to the commission more for high level meetings than any other player. From what we can tell, they've certainly had more high level meetings with the all of the NGO sector put together. They have increased their declared EU lobby spending a lot in the last few years, up to 2 million. I think they've quadrupled it in the last six years or also showing an increase. And they have used law firms and they rely heavily on lobby firms and also have been one of the key companies that have been mobilising other industries to get involved and to try to take their side in this lobby battle. So yeah, we... highlight in the report, Chemours, as really being one of the most important and indeed problematic actors.

Yes, and also something that becomes very evident when you look at the report is that several of these lobby tactics are not new and they're not an exclusive to this kind of industry. In fact, several of them, we've heard them in fossil fuel sector, also in the tobacco sector, who has been writing all the classical lobby tactics. So what do you think that should happen? And what also in terms of the legislative process, what will happen next?

Well, it's interesting that you talk about tobacco there, because I think there are a lot of overlaps between the PFAS industry and the tobacco industry. You know, just like with tobacco, the PFAS industry knew many decades ago about the problems with these products. They use some of the same tactics as the tobacco industry, including the sponsoring of science and intense lobbying. But also we can learn from something else to do with tobacco as well. because actually we recognise now collectively that there is a real problem with the tobacco industry. A few years ago, the UN, the World Health Organisation put in place lobby rules to try and protect public interest health decision-making from the pernicious influence of the tobacco lobby. 

The industry is very heavily restricted in terms of the kind of lobbying that it can do. And we think that this is just the kind of approach that we now need to apply to PFAS, indeed wider producers of harmful chemicals, but in this specific context, PFAS, and indeed to fossil fuels and other sectors as well. We cannot... see the public interest in allowing this lobbying by the PFAS industry to continue in an unchecked way. And we think that EU decision makers now based on our report and the work of the Forever Lobbying Project should really be putting in place new rules to restrict the lobbying that is done by the PFAS industry when they are demanding exemptions and exceptions to the proposal that is currently on the table. The PFAS industry has had many opportunities to express their views in consultations that have been run, including by the chemicals agency. And in fact, there will be another consultation coming up. So industry can express themselves and will express themselves, but they shouldn't be targeting the commission right now. 

The commission is just in an observer position as I say. And even when the file moves to the commission, we think that the PFIS industry should only be communicating with the commission in public fora where any spin or misleading messaging can be properly disputed. That I think is key. And I think this is vital because we know that there is a long history in Europe, but also elsewhere, of the chemicals industry managing to weaken regulation. There are many examples of this. They are well funded, they are very organised, they are very active and they have repeatedly over decades been able to weaken really important regulation which is needed for the purposes of protecting our health and our environment. We mustn't let that happen on the PFAS proposal because this PFAS issue, it is too important. to leave it to industry and the commission urgently needs to put new rules in place to protect this decision-making process.

Yes. And so just to finish, I think that the first impulse that comes to anyone who reads your report and who maybe listens to this podcast will be to go to the kitchen and throw away all the frying pans they have and the waterproof jackets that they may have, which might contain PFAS. But what would you recommend people to do about this issue?

Yes, this is important. And I think it's very difficult for consumers because these products, these substances have been put in our consumer products, day-to-day products, without our consent really, and now we're stuck with them. Even if we were to throw away these products, there's still the issue of what will happen to those products once they're in the waste chain. Will they be incinerated and then they will release more PFAS into the air? So this is not easy for consumers. consumer organisations have and NGOs that are working on PFAS in different countries have now guidance on their websites about how to avoid PFAS in buying new products and what to do with your old products. It will vary. The organisations vary. member state by member state, but that information is out there and likely to be available in different countries. It's difficult to avoid PFAS sometimes in new products because PFAS aren't labelled. If there is PFAS in a project, in a substance, that unless you actually know the names of all the 10,000 PFAS that are out there. then you won't necessarily be able to spot them even if there is a list of ingredients in your product. And they're in things like food packaging as well, which never has a label on it.

But what I think is increasingly happening is that when there are PFAS-free alternatives, they are being labelled. So I bought a waterproof coat not that long ago and I looked at the labels and I could see that some were labelled as being PFAS-free. So they might not be labelled if they have PFAS in them, but increasingly PFAS-free products are being labelled and you can look out for those on consumer products like the frying pans and the waterproof clothing. consumer action is easy and there's an organisation in, sorry, it's not easy, but it's possible and it's important, but there aren't perfect solutions there. Another option is that there is a Swedish NGO called ChemSec and they are working with industries, particularly on the retail and consumer facing side that are... committed to a PFAS ban and are working to phase out PFAS from their products. And I think you can look at that list of companies.

I think there's over a hundred now and that might also guide future consumer choices. But as I said before, this is to put the burden on us as consumers. And what we really need to do is to turn off the PFAS tap. And that means... we need political action and that means we need support for a progressive, ambitious PFAS ban across Europe, as far and wide as is possible and safe to do so where there are safe alternatives for those critical uses where PFASs are needed. And so there is an action which you can take, it's on the corporate Europe observatory website. It's led by We Move Europe. You can also find it there. That is demanding more commission action and member state leadership as well on tackling PFAS, but also the other harmful substances that are in the products that we use day to day and that are used by industry. So you can take action as a consumer, but don't forget the political level as well, because that is so important. And then finally, I would like to say that this isn't just an issue at the EU level, because the EU is notoriously slow at regulating, particularly on chemicals. And even if we have a really ambitious ban on PFAS, it will not really come into force, probably until at least 2030. now by the time all the implementation periods and agreements are made. But actually, member states can move much quicker.

And there is action in France, there's action in Denmark and in the Netherlands and in other countries to focus on PFAS pollution, but also to implement bans. Maybe it's on particular products like waterproof clothing or or other areas. And I think that is a really, it's potentially a quicker way of getting action and turning off the tap. It won't stop the EU action, but it will help to reinforce it and to show that governments are committed to tackling PFAS. So, yeah, consumer action, political action at the EU level, but also at the member state level as well.