90 supported projects match your criteria. View the awarded projects View map

The Good Fashion

  • Environment
  • Industry

BUCHAREST - EU residents are buying 40% more clothing than a few decades ago, with less than half being collected for reuse and only 1% recycled. The investigation focused on understanding whether the alternatives to fast fashion are sustainable from an economic, social, and environmental perspective.

Katerina Hefler

Food, Water, and PFAS: Investigating Grassroot Solutions to Chemical Pollution

  • Environment
  • Industry

PRAGUE - PFAS, a family of extremely hazardous chemicals linked to severe health issues, have been found in drinking water and vegetables, among others all over Europe. Against all odds, local communities and researchers across Europe are acting to find solutions to PFAS contamination in their food and water.

Katerina Hefler

Seeds of Deception

  • Environment
  • Industry

BONN/BUKAREST/BERN/AMSTERDAM/ATHENS – The future of our food supply is under threat as a high-stakes battle unfolds over seed control in the EU. This cross-border project investigated how companies exploit patent loopholes to demand and sometimes obtain patents from the EPO even on conventionally-bred plants, which are technically protected from patenting by both the EU and EPO laws.

White Gold in Europe. Is Environmentally Friendly Lithium Mining Possible?

  • Energy
  • Industry
  • Environment

ÚSTI NAD LABEM / LANDAU - The 'lithium fever' has devastated the landscape in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, among others. Europe is trying to mine its own lithium deposits in an environmentally friendly way: using geothermal energy. Germany is already experimenting with it in the Upper Rhine Valley. 

How Forest Management is Failing to Protect Europe’s Carbon Sinks

  • Climate
  • Environment
  • Industry

COVILHÃ /LES LANDES / HARZ - Forests are essential in the global fight against climate change, through their role as carbon sinks. But what happens when management choices are not made in the forest’s best interest?

The Phosphates Paradox

  • Climate
  • Environment
  • Industry

GAFSA – Phosphate rocks, rich in phosphorus, are the basis for most fertilisers. With growing demand for food worldwide and a growing need for fertilizers, phosphates are quickly becoming one of the most disputed minerals. One of the crucial phosphate basins is located in southern Tunisia, and the EU growing fertilisers market is drying up the area.

Kazabula Oyé

  • Industry
  • Human Rights
  • Exploitation

KINSHASA - Who are the Congolese mineral divers in the midst of the green transition? They call themselves kazabuleurs. In the late 1980s, Zairean fishermen dived for diamonds, first near Tshikapa and then on the Angolan border during the civil war.

National Governments in Fight Against Greenwashing at Garment Companies

  • Corruption
  • Economy
  • Industry

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM - Half of the sustainability claims on company websites are unproven, vague, unclear or downright deceptive, according to the European Commission. Clothing companies in particular jump on terms like ‘sustainable’ above average without explaining themselves in more detail. Since 2021, both Dutch and Belgian government agencies have therefore been scouring the internet for misleading sustainability claims.

Europe's Climate Denial Industry And Its Impact on Policy and Elections

  • Climate
  • Environment
  • Industry

BRUSSELS - Conspiratorial groups and influencers that once focussed on Covid-19 are increasingly pivoting towards attacking the EU's climate policies and sowing disinformation. Ahead of the EU's parliamentary elections, climate disinformation is ramping up, with the far-right looking to benefit.

The Netherlands and Belgium not aligned in fight against drugs

  • Industry
  • Justice
  • Politics

ANTWERP/ROTTERDAM - The ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam are the main European gateway for cocaine. Publicly, the Netherlands and Belgium proclaim their united commitment to breaking the backbone of the drug trade. But behind the scenes, differences in political culture are at play, and resentment and gloom reign.