GreenFacts, also known as Green Facts and under its website name greenfacts.org, formerly GreenFacts Foundation, is an European lobbying-related industry front group located in Brussels, Belgium. Green Facts was founded in December 2001 and is predominantly funded by the industry.

The main stated activity of GreenFacts is the production of multilingual summaries of scientific review documents on environment and health issues. Most topics closely correlate with the interests of the funding companies and organizations.

Beside their publishing activities GreenFacts is engaging in the european environment and health policy debate by participating in workshops and congresses where participants from industry and government debate about risk communication, industry public relations, and EU legislation — in the absence of environmental NGOs. ^{[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]} GreenFacts has also been involved in developing the European environment and health action plan 2004-2010 ^[8] and the European environment and health strategy (SCALE) ^[9]. Several topics covered in these plans can be found as GreenFacts scientific summaries.^{[10], [11]}

Sourcewatch (formerly Disinfopedia) comes to the following conclusion: ^[12]

"GreenFacts has many characteristics of an industry-funded front organization defining itself as an NGO, and claiming to have been formed by a wide range of stakeholders. It has established a level of credibility through its production of summary documents, and it now appears to be using this activity as a way of more deeply engaging in the policy debate."

Currently published GreenFacts summaries are about:

• Climate change and global warming
• Electric power transmission and electromagnetic radiation hazard
• Ecosystem change
• Tobacco smoke and lung cancer
• Arsenic
• Mercury
• Water disinfectants and chlorine
• Dioxins
• Aspartame
• Endocrine disruptors
• Forests and forestry (in preparation)^[13]

Front group

GreenFacts tries to gain credibility as an objective and balanced organisation using the following strategies:

• Its name as well as the appearance and phraseology used on their website and on press releases gives the wrong impression that environmental NGOs are involved.
• Publishing summaries of selected scientific consensus documents in an objective style, restricting links to obviously biased information to the "Other views" section at the end of some of these documents.
• Approaching experts in the field to review these summaries and then listing their names as their "Panel of Experts".
• Website link exchanges and "partnerships" with other organisations, environmental groups, universities, and governments. These are then listed as "Current Partners" together with funding companies and lobbying groups.

A front group is an organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other party or interest. The shadowy way front groups operate makes it difficult to know whether a seemingly independent grassroots is actually representing some other entity. While GreenFacts does not hide its financial sources, the strategies mentioned above show the typical characteristics of an industrial front group that is involved in industry lobbying and public relations.

Sound science

The role of GreenFacts in a sound science strategy of industry lobbying is illustrated by the following facts:

• Tractebel Engeneering is a nuclear energy company ^[14].
• Tractebel starts funding GreenFacts.
• GreenFacts publishes a summary on "Climate change and global warming".
• This summary is then used on websites like GreenBalance to propagate the use of nuclear energy as "the safest, cleanest and most sustainable energy source".
• As a sidenote, this GreenFacts summary might have been internally referenced to as the "nuclear study" ^[15].

Sound Science is a phrase often used by corporate public relations and government agency spokesmen to describe the scientific research used to justify a claim or position. Sound science, however, has no specific scientific definition itself, so the phrase is used subjectively. Lack of sound science is a common critique used against public health and consumer activists in an attempt to discredit their concerns about public safety and environmental risk ^[16].

The Research Headlines, published by the European Commission, writes about GreenFacts:

"Images of the green movement dominated by activists spiking the wheels of industry could be a thing of the past, if the GreenFacts Foundation has its way. Stakeholder dialogue, clear communication and co-operation are the new mantras driving the environment and health debate."^[17]

Funding

Initially GreenFacts was initially funded solely by Solvay . In 2006 the initial funding by Solvay ends and GreenFacts now plans to get substantial subsidies from public authorities such as the European Commission and the Belgian Governments. Such subsidies are generally reserved to organizations having at least three years of existence. The total income for 2005 is estimated with €680,000. According to the GreenFacts foundation website in March 2005, the organization is now funded by the following companies:

• Solvay , an international chemical and pharmaceutical company.
• Procter & Gamble, an international chemical and homecare products company.
• Total Petrochemicals, the fourth largest oil company worldwide.
• Suez-Tractebel, an international energy company.
• Ferrari Textiles , an international textiles company, involved in PVC recycling.
• Raffinerie Tirlemontoise, a sugar and food company.
• Carrefour, a supermarket group.

GreenFacts is also funded or supported by the following trade associations and industry-funded lobbying groups:

• CEFIC (European Chemical Industry Council) (members include Solvay and Total)^[18].
• Euro Chlor, an association of chemical companies (members include Solvay and Total).
• PlasticsEurope, a trade association of plastics manufacturers including Solvay.^[19].
• European Crop Protection Association (ECPA), an association of 16 crop chemical companies and 26 national company associations.
• World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), an association of 170 international companies including Procter & Gamble and Suez.^[20]
• Entreprises Pour l'Environnement (EpE), an association of 45 of the leading multinational companies in France, including Solvay, Suez, and Total.

The funding situation is obscured by the fact that some companies are funding GreenFacts directly as well as indirectly through trade associations and lobbying groups. For examples, Solvay is a member of most GreenFacts funding organizations including CEFIC, Euro Chlor, PlasticsEurope, and EpE.

In addition, GreenFacts has received financial contributions from:

• unknown individuals
• HARAFI Foundation (also known as HARAFI Fondation, an ominous organization for which no online information is available, known mainly as a ballet sponsor)
• Swiss government (unknown agency)

Most topics of GreenFacts publications closely correlate with the interests of the above mentioned funding companies and organizations:

Criticism of summaries

GreenFacts emphasizes that their summaries of scientific studies are written from a strictly neutral and unbiased standpoint. This claim does not stand undisputed ^{water disinfectants, mercury, climate change}.

External links

• GreenFacts Foundation website
• GreenFacts reports website
• Sourcewatch (formerly Disinfopedia) about GreenFacts
• Beware 'Sound Science.' It's Doublespeak for Trouble, a Washington Post article on "sound science" under president George W. Bush.
• Sourcewatch on front groups
• REACH: Intensive lobbying on eve of Parliament hearing