The Forever Lobbying Project

The Forever Lobbying Project was selected for the 2026 Shortlist with PFAS: The Forever Lobbying Project.

Summary:

For over a year, the Forever Lobbying Project investigated an ongoing orchestrated lobbying and disinformation campaign by the PFAS industry and its allies, with the aims of watering down an EU proposal to ban “forever chemicals” and shifting the burden of environmental pollution onto society.

Coordinated by Le Monde, the cross-border, interdisciplinary investigation revealed 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. In January 2026, a study commissioned by the European Commission extensively cited our findings and concluded that, depending on the scenarios considered, the cost could range from €330 billion to €1.7 trillion by 2050.

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.

Since February 2023, a draft PFAS ban is being considered by the EU. In response, hundreds of industry players defending the interests of around 15 sectors have been lobbying decision makers across Europe to undermine, and perhaps kill, the proposal.

The team subjected the key arguments deployed by lobbyists to a “stress test”, and discovered that many of them are fearmongering, false, misleading, or potentially dishonest. The investigation described how lobbyists resort to influence tactics typical of the corporate world, used throughout the decades to defend tobacco, fossil fuels, and other chemicals and pesticides. The public debate on PFAS has now been polluted by these “Merchants of Doubt”.

The investigation built on the concept of “expert-reviewed journalism”, pioneered in 2023 with the Forever Pollution Project, this time involving 18 international academics and lawyers in Zurich, Stockholm, Toronto, Rotterdam and elsewhere, from the field of environmental chemistry to criminology.

The journalists developed the methodology to stress test the lobbying arguments with Gary Fooks (University of Bristol, UK), and the remediation costs methodology with Ali Ling (University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, US) and Hans Peter Arp (Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norwegian Geotechnical Institute).

In collaboration with EU lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory and the PFAS Project Lab, the team collected over 14,000 unpublished documents on PFAS, constituting the world’s largest collection to date on the topic. The unique trove of documents is now available to the public in the Industry Documents Library at the University of California, San Francisco, home of the famous “Tobacco Papers”, and in the Toxic Docs database of Columbia University, New York, and the City University of New York.

Credits

Team members

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde)
Raphaëlle Aubert (Le Monde)
Luc Martinon (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)
Romane Bonnemé (RTBF)
Zuzana Vlasatá (Deník Referendum)
Staffan Dahllöf (Investigative Reporting Denmark)
Tiina Lundell (YLE)
Léopold Salzenstein (Arena for Journalism in Europe)
Émilie Rosso (France Télévisions)
Jose Miguel Calatayud (Freelancer)
Daniel Drepper (NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Catharina Felke (NDR)
Johannes Edelhoff (NDR)
Lea Busch (NDR)
Nadja Tausche (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Jana Heck (WDR)
Andrea Hoferichter (MIT Technology Review Germany)
Sarah Pilz (Freelancer/Forever Lobbying Project)
Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United)
Marco Boscolo (Facta.eu)
Elisabetta Tola (Facta.eu)
Laura Fazzini (Lavialibera)
Marta Frigerio (Freelancer / L’Espresso)
Gianluca Liva (Freelancer / L’Espresso)
Anna Violato (Freelancer / L’Espresso)
Jasper Been (Financieele Dagblad)
Lisa van der Velden (Financieele Dagblad)
Bijou van der Borst (Investico)
Simon Dequeker (Investico)
Emiel Woutersen (Investico)
Tarjei Leer-Salvesen (Klassekampen)
Samo Demsar (Oštro)
Matej Zwitter (Oštro)
Antonio Delgado (DATADISTA)
Ana Tudela (DATADISTA)
Aleksandra Pogorzelska (Dagens ETC)
Daniel Värjö (Sveriges Radio)
Felicitas Flohr (SRF)
Maj-Britt Horlacher (SRF)
Cemre Demircioğlu (The Black Sea)

Zeynep Sentek (The Black Sea)
Craig Shaw (The Black Sea)
Leana Hosea (Watershed Investigations / The Guardian)
Rachel Salvidge (Watershed Investigations / The Guardian)

Editorial and overall coordination

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde) / Project & Lobbying
Raphaëlle Aubert (Le Monde) / Cost
Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United) / Cost

Website coordination

Jose Miguel Calatayud (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)
Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United)
Stéphane Horel (Le Monde)

Documents and Data coordination

Luc Martinon (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)
Léopold Salzenstein (Arena for Journalism in Europe)

Stress test of the lobbying arguments

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde)
Gary Fooks (University of Bristol, UK)
Jose Miguel Calatayud (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)
Daniel Värjö (Sveriges Radio)
Sarah Pilz (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)

Evaluation of remediation cost

Raphaëlle Aubert (Le Monde) / Cost
Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United) / Cost
Ali Ling (University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, United States)
Hans-Peter Arp (Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Norway)

EXPERT GROUP

Stress test of the lobbying arguments

Gary Fooks, University of Bristol, UK

Evaluation of remediation cost

Ali Ling, University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, United States
Hans Peter H. Arp, Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Norway

PFAS experts

Rob Bilott, attorney, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, United States
Ian Cousins, Stockholm University, Sweden
Joost Dalmijn, Stockholm University, Sweden
Jamie DeWitt, Oregon State University, United States
Romain Figuière, Stockholm University, Sweden
Gretta Goldenman, Global PFAS Science Panel, Belgium
Philippe Grandjean, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Dorte Herzke, Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Norway
Marcel Riegel, German Water Center, Germany
Martin Scheringer, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Historical documents

Lauren Richter, University of Toronto, Canada
Lieselot Bisschop, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Sammie Verbeek, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

AI analysis

Hugo Subtil, University of Zürich, Switzerland
Juliette Jahan de Lestang, École des Mines de Paris, France

PUBLICATIONS

English:

https://foreverpollution.eu/lobbying/

Le Monde

PFAS: The astronomical cost of depolluting Europe

PFAS: How Le Monde estimated the cost of decontaminating Europe

PFAS: In France, the cost of decontamination is vastly underestimated

PFAS, a family of 10,000 ‘forever chemicals’ contaminating all of humanity

Excavating soil, changing lake water, no playing outside: PFAS-contaminated Flanders’ dystopian disaster

PFAS: How the chemical industry is derailing a ban on ‘forever chemicals’