GreenFacts
GreenFacts, formerly the GreenFacts Foundation, is an international non-profit organization founded in 2001 in Brussels, Belgium. It produces short summaries of technical scientific reports for the public. It states that its mission is "to bring complex scientific consensus reports on health and the environment to the reach of non-specialists."
Aims
GreenFacts' primary function is to provide summaries of scientific consensus reports on environment and health issues (such as climate change and tobacco). GreenFacts' aim is to rewrite these highly technical, scientific publications into something more easily understood by lay readers. The summaries are subjected to a review by experts in that field for faithfulness to the original document . The peer review process is overseen by GreenFacts' Scientific Board composed of independent scientists . These summaries are then published on the organization's website.
GreenFacts states that one of its missions is to foster dialogue between environmentalists, industry and others by Providing accessible and neutral information.
An article published by the European Commission writes that GreenFacts "recognised that ProgresS in health and the environment would need to come from 'dialogue And Co-operation, rather than activism and confrontation'."
Funding
GreenFacts was founded in December 2001 with seed money from the Belgian chemical company Solvay. Until 2004, it remained primarily funded by industrial companies such as Solvay, Carrefour, Suez. Since 2005, over 50% of its funding has come from other sources, such as individuals, foundations, UN organization, the European Commission, and national governments and agencies. In 2006, GreenFacts' total income was €510,000 .
Partnerships
GreenFacts has partnership agreements with several commercial companies, industry associations, NGOs, governmental organizations, UN institutions, and media organization .
It is a member of the IUCN and is an observer organization of the IPCC .
In December 2007, GreenFacts joined the COM+ Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development as associate partner.
GreenFacts regularly collaborates with the organizations publishing the scientific reports it summarizes (such as WHO, FAO, CBD, Millennium Assessment...).
Referrals
GreenFacts summaries have been praised by several eminent scientists, such as Robert Watson . GreenFacts summaries are linked to from tens of thousands of websites, including many NGOs and UN organization websites.
GreenFacts has worked under contract for the European Commission to produce summaries of 3 scientific reports of the Scientific Committees of the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection , which are published on the European Commission's website .
Criticisms
GreenFacts' industry funding has led some to question the organizations' objectives. Its publications are criticized by the SourceWatch wiki as biased toward the concept of "sound science" — which is viewed by many in the scientific community as a nebulous, essentially political term often used to justify a predetermined (generally opposing) worldview.