Supported projects

BELGRADE - A lot of money and political interest is at stake in Serbia, where there are significant lithium reserves. Geologists from mining giant Rio Tinto found Europe's largest lithium deposits under the farmland of the Jadar valley — enough to produce at least one million electric car batteries ...

BRUSSELS - Suffering from Parkinson's disease or cancer, European farm workers experience inadequate recognition and failing compensation schemes, a cross-border research of media in ten European countries shows.

HAMBURG - Europe’s dump yard and the system behind the international recycling business

BRUSSELS - Though they are right under our feet, soils do not receive much attention. Yet the many free services they provide for us are truly priceless, and they are under pressure. What can we do to prevent all this, and to repair damaged soils, Tim Vernimmen asked eight soil scientists in four ...

EL FAOUAR - Despite being owned by one of France's richest families, the Perrodos, the Franco-British company Perenco has a long history of secrecy and discretion.

BRUSSELS - Climate change is causing extremes in weather, such as more frequent heat waves, periods of drought and intense rainfall. Our farmers notice the consequences of the climate crisis on their fields, in fluctuating yields and failing crops.

VINDELN/LO MANTHANG/OLD CROW - Through the project Indigenous People Today, we investigate the effects of climate change on indigenous peoples, their ways of life and unique cultures. These are indigenous peoples in the northern hemisphere, living in arctic or high-altitude areas.

PRAGUE - A cross-border team of journalists has focused on the potential corruption of solar energy support in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. More specifically, in the Czech Republic, the government has postponed changes to the law that would allow the state-guaranteed price of solar power to ...

BARCELONA – Beekeepers across Europe are facing challenges. Over the past few decades, European policies — especially the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) — have encouraged the industrialisation of agriculture. This has left bees with nowhere to thrive and exposed them to many harmful substances ...

LUBLIN - The export of waste to Poland is booming. Among these exports, illegal shipments frequently occur. Companies from Germany, the UK, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden have illegally exported waste to Poland in recent years.

ACCRA, GHANA - This investigation puts the spotlight on the dumping of e-waste, particularly discarded colling appliances by Europe’s e-waste exporters in Africa in contravention of EU’s law and the Basel Convention while port officials in Europe turn a blind eye to the shipment of these discarded ...

BRUSSELS - For the first time in history, the world is consuming more bottled water than soft drinks. Although access to safe water is both a fundamental human need and a basic human right recognised by the United Nations, the continuous growth in bottled water consumption is not just a response to ...

LUBUMBASHI / KOLWEZI / BERLIN - Manufacturers need cobalt to make batteries for electric cars. This documentary reveals the European car industry's efforts to establish proper supply chains and exposes the reality of cobalt mining in the Congo.

BRUSSELS - “When discussing drug production, we rarely look at the environmental damage and costs. Belgium, together with The Netherlands, is the main producer of synthetic drugs in Europe, and the chemical waste deriving as a by-product from the production here remains.

BRUSSELS - We replace our phones every two to three years on average, and that's bad news for both the environment and the climate. This article investigates where the key problems lie, what governments should do about it, and what we as consumers can do to help.

VOLVIC - An in-depth investigation of the We Report network uncovers the dark side of the bottled water business in Europe, where the market is dominated by multinational companies such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Danone.

Since the start of the nitrogen crisis in 2018, more Dutch livestock farmers moved to Belgium than in previous years. This is evident from new research by Spit and Apache. Environmental organisations have been warning for some time that Belgium has become a 'nitrogen paradise' for large-scale ...

BRUSSELS - Open your tap and close it again. The water you just saw was yours for two seconds before draining again. But what do you know about that water? Where does it come from and where does it go? And how long will it continue to flow from the tap?

NANYUKI - De Mens en de Hoorn is a project by Olivia Kortas and Kasper Goethals in collaboration with photographer Johannes De Bruycker. Based on the story of Najin and Fatu, the last two northern white rhinos on earth, they tell about the dysfunctional relationship between humans and their planet.

PUYUELO - Only 15.8% of the total population still lives in the so-called Empty Spain, which covers just over half of the interior of the country. While Spanish cities have doubled or even tripled in size over the past century, the population in the interior of the country has barely increased.

KUMTOR-BRUSSELS - A two-part investigation unveiled how European taxpayers and consumers have unintentionally contributed to unlawful and environmentally dangerous gold extraction at Kumtor (Kyrgyzstan), the world's largest open-pit ice-mining site.

LONDON - The shipping industry is central to the global economy. But among the world's biggest polluters and tax avoiders. Its emissions, from the dirtiest fuel-oil on earth, are larger than those of Germany, and have a serious impact on climate change.

LILONGWE - Malawi is one of the countries hardest hit by climate change. Major floods and extreme drought mean that the harvest fails year after year. Girls are then easy prey for human traffickers.

A'DAM / BRUSSELS - More and more people are moving to the city, but what does the future of these growing cities look like? Thanks to Journalismfund’s LOCAL grant programme, two media organisations (BRUZZ from Brussels and AT5 from Amsterdam) have teamed up for the first time to investigate the two ...

LEUVEN - The European Commission gave Leuven the prestigious Green Leaf Award 2018 for its climate policy and, in its motivation for naming the city the European Capital of Innovation in 2020, referred to 'inspiring governance models' for getting residents, businesses and knowledge institutions to ...

SUTHERLAND - The European Union pledged around 2.9 billion euro between 2001 and 2020 to support the development of aquaculture. Based on the Food and Agriculture Organisation's strong support for fish farming, European institutions plan to develop aquaculture in member states, in order to decrease ...

BRUSSELS - In the coming years, more forest should be created in Flanders. Minister Demir wants to invest 121 million euros to create 4,000 extra hectares of forest by 2024. A good thing, but how good are we at protecting and planting trees outside the forest?

FLEMISH-BRABANT - 20 May 2020. Inhabitants of Flemish Brabant municipalities received a compelling call to strictly limit their water consumption. Despite this, water consumption was abnormally high during this period. Citizens were worried, because in some municipalities there was hardly any water ...

BERLIN / BRUSSELS - On almost every drinking bottle or plastic wrapper you can find a Green Dot sign: a circle with two swirling green arrows inside. The logo represents the system of waste separation in yellow bins and blue bags, run by 'Green Dot' organisations. These organisations ensure the ...

TURÓW - For years Poland has been ignoring complaints of border residents on the Czech-German-Polish tri-border, where groundwater is declining as a result of a combination of the climate crisis and mining activity. The Czech Republic has a great chance of succeeding in a lawsuit before the European ...