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The PFAS lobby is repeating history. Will Brussels fall for it?

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The PFAS lobby is repeating history. Will Brussels fall for it?

20 years ago, industry warned that EU chemicals legislation would hit Europe’s economy hard. Today, the PFAS lobby is making the same dire predictions about the future. But how did those claims from the early 2000s turn out? Brussels needs to learn from the past.

Published on 13 Jan 2025

The chemical industry sounds like a broken record, predicting the same dire consequences of the upcoming PFAS ban as it did for EU chemicals legislation 20 years ago. A powerful lobby is pushing the idea that banning PFAS will lead to massive job losses and the de-industrialisation of Europe.

But we’ve heard all this before. Ever since concern first emerged in the 1960s about the health effects of synthetic chemicals, industry has foreseen a catastrophe if those chemicals are banned.

“It will de-industrialise Europe”

After the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Monsanto published a parody called The Desolate Year, which predicted famine and disease without DDT. The USA banned the chemical in 1972. Spoiler alert: there was neither famine nor disease.

The PFAS lobby is like those companies that defended DDT. A ban on PFAS “will effectively stop all manufacturing” of medicines, says the pharmaceutical industry. It will “deindustrialise” the continent, says Chemours, a major PFAS producer. German business warns that a ban “threatens to undermine decades of progress”.

A ban would have “A HUGE NEGATIVE IMPACT WORLDWIDE” and lead to “MILLIONS OF JOB LOSSES” (capital letters in original), says one company in its response to the PFAS proposal. There will be “a water disaster” that “quickly turns into a famine”, says another. It “will be nothing short of a catastrophe for the EU economy”, says a large industry association. Others predict the “collapse of the whole social infrastructure”, “dramatic socio-economic dismantling”, and so on, and so on…

The chemical industry played this same tune 20 years ago

“It will de-industrialise Europe” – again

The chemical industry played this same tune 20 years ago when Europe was discussing the REACH regulations for registering and testing chemicals.

“We are in effect going to de-industrialise Europe” with these proposals, claimed the head of CEFIC, representing Europe’s chemical industry. German industry predicted up to 2.35 million job losses and a 6.4% fall in German GDP, while the French Chemical Industry Association predicted up to 670,000 jobs lost in France.

The methodology behind these estimates was refuted by economists, but the figures were nevertheless used in the public debate. Indeed, ChemSec felt obliged to compile a report in 2004 detailing how industry and regulators systematically overestimated the cost of environmental legislation going back to the 1970s.

So, how did things turn out for the chemical industry?

How did it turn out?

After REACH came into force in 2007, chemical sales in the EU grew steadily from €471 billion in 2008 to €760 billion in 2022. That’s 61%, or a healthy average annual growth rate of 3.5%.

In fact, the share prices of chemicals companies hugely outperformed the rest of European industry:

Source: Financial Times

The dip after 2008 was caused by a global financial crash that started in the US property sector – in other words, nothing to do with chemicals.

Crying wolf redux

ChemSec has repeatedly demonstrated that industry lobby groups tend to overestimate the anticipated compliance costs of regulation and underestimate the potential for developing new, safer technologies.

As decision time approaches for the proposed PFAS restriction, regulators in Brussels need to ask themselves: do you want to read another ChemSec report in 10 years’ time detailing how the PFAS lobby was wrong?

Decision makers should approach industry warnings about the future with caution, as past experience shows that they are usually mistaken.

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