Supported projects

BRUSSELS - Which is more sustainable: a woollen jumper or a polyester one? The European Union proposes a universal calculation to find out. The answer may surprise you: although polyester is a synthetic fibre made from fossil fuels, it is not the plastic fibre but the natural fibre that turns out to be worse for the environment.

BRUSSELS/DUBLIN - For decades, European consumers have been warned about the dangers of smoking. Yet wine and beer still carry no clear health warnings, even though alcohol is one of the leading preventable causes of cancer. This investigation reveals how the European alcohol industry has fought to keep it that way.

ANTWERP / RIEME - No one knows how many harmful substances are emitted from the chimneys of Flemish factories. However, the emissions of the limited group of “Substances of Very High Concern” reported by Flemish companies are almost twice as high as those reported by companies in the Netherlands. 

BRUSSELS - Agriculture in Flanders is facing challenges. Caught between expanding cities and ever-growing nature reserves, farmers are striving to produce food for a growing (global) population.

BEIJING - China in 2025 has changed significantly. Under the new strongman Xi Jingping, the Communist Party's totalitarian control over the state is greater than ever. By developing the New Silk Road and increasing its high-tech expertise, it has also been able to expand its sphere of influence worldwide.

LAGOS – For years, the city has suffered severe air pollution caused by high sulphur levels in imported diesel and gasoline. This piece of graphic journalism traces the data trail of the oil from West Africa to European port terminals.

ANTWERP – In Lillo, Antwerp, chemical giant Ineos is working hard on its new ethane cracker. Project One. From US shale fields to plastic waste in European incinerators, the plant will emit ten times more CO₂ than Ineos's own projected emissions for the cracker.

IJMUIDEN - After pulse fishing was banned by the European Parliament in 2018, many Dutch fishermen switched to flyshooting. However, flyshoot fishing mainly targets species for which there is too little data to manage stocks properly. These are not subject to quotas and fishermen can take them out of the sea without limit. And that is a recipe for overfishing.

ANTWERP - Between Kapelstraat, the railway tracks and two strips of industrial activity lies a neighbourhood that has been home to peace, conviviality and neighbourly friendship for over a hundred years. In the background, smoke curls from Umicore.

BARAY - Billionaires, luxury tour operators and airlines legitimise their CO₂ emissions with carbon credits from the Hadzabe, a group of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania who hardly emit any CO₂ themselves.

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. 

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.

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM - According to the European Commission, half of the sustainability claims on company websites are unproven, vague, unclear or downright deceptive. Clothing companies in particular use terms such as 'sustainable' more frequently than other companies without providing further information. Since 2021, both the Dutch and Belgian governments have been searching the internet for misleading sustainability claims.

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.

KAMPALA/DAR ES SALAAM - In 2006, British company Tullow Oil discovered oil reserves in the Albertine region in northwestern Uganda. In early 2022, Total signed an agreement with Tanzania and Uganda and Chinese state-owned CNOOC to begin construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). The project will create the largest oil-heated pipeline with a length of 1,443 kilometers between Hoima in Uganda and Tanga in Tanzania, from where crude oil will be exported. But not without consequences.

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM - Scientific publications, leaked company data and government data suggest that industry is doing everything possible to deliberately put up a fog curtain around these ultra short PFAS.

ANTWERPEN/ROTTERDAM - The social damage of air pollution caused by the (petro)chemical sector in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam runs into billions of euros. This is according to an investigation by Apache and Follow The Money based on official figures on emissions and transfer of pollutants from large industrial facilities.

ROTTERDAM - The Port of Rotterdam claims to champion sustainability but is the reality matching its marketing?

BRUSSELS - A good 15 percent of all spending within research and development in Flemish higher education comes from companies. Private companies finance research projects and doctorates and purchase licenses. But the line between close cooperation and conflict of interest between university and company is sometimes wafer-thin.

AMSTERDAM – Shell knows how to navigate the highest circles and the shortcuts through political swamps. The oil and gas giant operates in 70 countries. Most of these are not democratic constitutional states. Until recently known as Royal Dutch Shell, Shell has to deal daily with weak or autocratic governments, corruption, unrest, war and terrorism. How does it navigate these challenges?

BRUSSELS - The flip side of pharmaceutical companies' staggering profit figures is that the marketing for their products is incredibly important. Dutch research shows that pharma even spends twice as much money on this than on the development of new drugs. In this study we examine to what extent and in what way health information in the professional media is influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.

BRUSSELS - You never wear one third of the clothes in your wardrobe. Another third you rarely ever put on. You have not touched nine out of ten outfits for a whole year. You throw away more clothes than any other European. And yet you keep buying new clothes. Because you feel that you need them. Because every morning you wake up and think you have nothing to wear.

KABWE - One of the largest lead mines in the world closes in 1994. Local people in Kabwe, a metropolis in Zambia, see jobs disappear. They are left uninvited with a mountain of harmful mining waste and residential areas polluted by lead.

BRUSSELS - Belgian firm GSR, subsidiary of dredging group DEME, is dying to go to the deep sea to mine for metal nodules. Ten years ago, GSR applied for an initial licence to do so.

ANTWERP - The pollution around the 3M plant near Antwerp (Belgium) has been known for years. Yet the PFOS scandal did not erupt in Flanders until the spring of 2021.

HSINCHU - Microchips are at the heart of our digital world. Without them, our smartphones and laptops do not work, our cars fall silent and the internet crashes. So it comes as no surprise that car factories are halting production due to a global chip shortage, China and the US are fighting a trade war over chips, and the European Union is investing billions in the chip industry.

BRAKEN - The Belgian town of Braken, on the Dutch border, is home to 1.2 million chickens. They divide the town: residents are tired of the smell, the fine dust and the heavy traffic in their village. To objectify the discussion, the local government ordered an air quality study.

KAPELLE OP DEN BOS/KYMORE - Kapelle-op-den-Bos is the birthplace of filmmaker Daniel Lambo. Life was good there, Daniel's father was a laborer and trade unionist in the local Eternit factory. The company was once one of the largest asbestos-producing multinationals in the world. Today we know the consequences of asbestos production and for many it's a problem of the past. However, the asbestos issue proves to be still actual when the activities of Eternit abroad are being scrutinized.

ANTWERP - In a time of growing polarization, geo-political instability and a reduced confidence in institutions, there are people who want real change. Bottom-up seems to be a major shift in the political landscape. Citizens solve problems without waiting for decision-making. This can be the start of a new power structure and will thoroughly change our policy.

BRUSSELS - An investigation by VRT journalist Luc Pauwels shows that since November official Opel dealers have been modifying polluting software in one of the Opel models..