The Forever Lobbyists
Undermining Big Chemistry as it apes Big Tobacco in defending its “forever” markets
I briefly touched on the risks facing the global insurance industry’s posed by the widespread use of “forever” chemicals back in July, but the issue seems to be gaining traction—to the horror of some parts of the chemicals industry. Indeed, some leaders in the sector will have suffered an unsettled breakfast when reading social media reports triggered by a fascinating article in today’s Guardian newspaper.
According to the article, “the cost of cleaning up toxic forever chemical pollution could reach more than £1.6tn across the UK and Europe over a 20-year period, an annual bill of £84bn.”
At a time when the number of British pollution hotspots is growing, the risk is that “if emissions remain unrestricted and uncontrolled, the costs of cleanup will reach £9.9bn a year in the UK, according to the findings of a year-long investigation by the Forever Lobbying Project, a cross-border investigation involving 46 journalists and 18 experts across 16 countries.”
The offending chemicals are known as PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or, more colloquially, “forever chemicals.” This family of over 10,000 human-made substances is used to manufacture “nonstick pans, pizza boxes, cosmetics, waterproof clothing, firefighting foam and pharmaceuticals,” among other things.
The very properties that make them so useful to industry—the fact that they are heatproof, greaseproof and waterproof—also create ecological and human health problems. They are pretty much indestructible in nature, build up in living organisms, and “have been linked to infertility, cancers, immune and hormone disruption, and other illnesses.”
Even Patagonia has used PFAS extensively in the past, though it now says that will ensure that the substances are not included in its membranes and water-repellent finishes, at least intentionally, from this year.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that simply to clean up existing levels of PFAS pollution in the UK would cost “an estimated £428m every year for the next 20 years, based on existing cost data. This would cover remediating contaminated soils, landfill leachate and to treat 5% of the drinking water in large water supply zones for just the two regulated PFAS compounds, PFOS and PFOA.”
The Guardian notes that these cost estimates “are conservative, as they only include decontamination costs, not socioeconomic costs or potential costs to the health system. It also assumes that PFAS emissions stop immediately.” Even so, it notes that industry lobbyists are using the “tobacco playbook” to fight off future controls.
A map produced by the Forever Lobbying Project back in 2023 gives a useful sense of where the problem lies in Europe. Last year, Barron’s estimated that the US PFAS cleanup market was worth $200 billion—and flagged four companies that stood to benefit by selling technology and services.
NASDAQ, the stock exchange based in New York City, noted last year that “the bad effects PFAS have on human health have created billions of dollars’ worth of liabilities for companies. For example, in 2023, 3M (MMM) agreed to pay a massive $10.3 billion settlement to public water suppliers that had detected PFAS in drinking water.”
Clearly, this story is likely to run for a long time, if not “forever,” with massive implications for companies involved in making, using and cleaning up PFAS. Because the subject is central to a new book I’m working on, I plan to watch this space fairly intently.
And in case you want more of the same, can we propose:
What readers say:
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PAUL POLMAN, former CEO of Unilever, campaigner, and co-author of Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take.
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