Supported projects

PARIS - WAMM is an open source, GIS, web application that allows journalists and civil society to analyse and investigate West Africa's mining industries as a whole, and not on a country by country basis.

BELFAST - As part of a cross-border project to investigate the poultry industry on the island of Ireland, the investigative team from The Detail, Noteworthy and The Guardian took a deep dive into cross-border litter trade and the environmental impacts from the industry as it expands in line with Sta ...

LOME - Investigative journalists Andrew Weir and Nicolas Vescovacci reveal the networks of influence and finance that built up the logistics empire of Vincent Bolloré and made him the target of official investigations into alleged corruption in Africa.

VARNA - Improper management of a wastewater treatment pipe in the Varna lake has led to repeated toxic leaks since 2019. 

DERRYCRAVE - As part of a cross-border project to investigate the peat extraction industries in Ireland and Latvia, the Irish investigative platform Noteworthy has examined the impacts of unlicensed peat extraction across the country. The findings reveal a system of largely unregulated peat ...

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.

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 ...

PORTO - Research by journalists Eelco van Wieringen (Buro Publieke Werken, Holland), Micael Pereira (Expresso Portugal) and Twan Kroon (researcher, Holland) shows that the age of port wines is often incorrect. They commissioned scientific research into the actual age of 10 and 20 year old Tawny ...

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.

MAPUTO - The promise of transformative wealth from natural gas has seduced Mozambicans for more than a decade. But as the projects led by TotalEnergies and Eni have started construction, revenues to the country look likely to fall significantly short of expectations.

PARIS - Le Monde and The Investigative Desk delved into the multi-layered world of Big Tobacco’s 21st century astroturfing. They discovered that under the guise of defending individual freedom, fake consumer organisations are promoting e-cigarettes.

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.

THE HAGUE - The Netherlands is an important financial centre behind the international arms trade. Research from The Investigative Desk (the Netherlands) and an Indian news outlet shows how some of the biggest arms companies in the world use the Netherlands as an intermediary to wire profits to tax ...

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.

PARIS / DAKAR - Over the last decade, the Chinese appetite for peanuts has turned them into the new 'gold' of Senegal. The two countries signed an agreement in 2014, after which China became the leading importer of Senegalese peanuts.

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.

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 ...

COPENHAGEN - The international humanitarian organisation Humana runs a recycling business in Europe worth more than 100 million euros. However, only 13% of their earnings appear to end up in the developing world.

SOFIA - Excessive water cuts for its consumers, questionable management of tendering procedures, constant increases in water prices in the face of significant leaks in its outdated infrastructure. These features of a global water giant, repeatedly highlighted by the press, are no longer a secret in ...

The oil industry continues to try and expand in Kenya, but there is an urgent need for stricter enforcement and adherence to the rules designed to keep the public and environment safe from the extraction industry’s impacts. The journalists continue to investigate the impact on Kenya from the ...

BRUSSELS - How did we come to pay gold for a drug whose effectiveness has not been proven? This is the story of Remdesivir, a drug developed by the American company Gilead Sciences with large public funds to combat Ebola, and in July approved by the European Medicines Agency with "conditional ...

CAPE TOWN - As dam levels dropped rapidly at the end of 2017 and Cape Town faced the looming threat of becoming the first major city where taps would run dry, households were forced to pull out all the stops to save water. But Coca Cola and other big industrial users were given a free pass.

AMSTERDAM - While the Covid recovery is increasing pressure on public finances and raising the prospect of tax increases, this new research from The Investigative Desk with support from the University of Bath shows, for the first time on this scale, which tax avoidance methods the world’s four ...

DUBLIN - Facebook and Google let advertisers target the audience they want to reach, that much is known. Less known is that both platforms perform another round of targeting, irrespective of the advertiser's wishes. 

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.

YEREVAN - In 2018, Armenian citizens overthrew an authoritarian regime in a mass movement. Now, they are taking on an international mining company. Over the past few years, activists and locals have blockaded Lydian International’s flagship $400 million Amulsar gold mining project due to its ...

PRETORIA - Mining companies publicly listed in the United Kingdom must disclose the payments they make to governments, including taxes, royalties, and license fees. But this is not always the case in South Africa. A data investigation by a team of journalists and activists highlighted how these ...

TBILISI - Every December, 80 million Christmas trees are sold across Europe. The majority of these, 45 million, are Nordmann firs, which originate from the Caucasus region. Eighty per cent of the Nordmann firs cultivated in Europe originate from seeds harvested in western Georgia.