Since EWG isn’t limited to areas of published scientific research, they find inspiration everywhere by recognizing where people fall through cracks and where EWG can step in and do the most good. EWG scientists work with Government Affairs and industry experts on staff to identify the gaps left by the two biggest entities in the world responsible for public health: corporations and the government.
Government is slow to regulate and even slower to ban hazardous chemicals.
“Some who work for me had never seen a major environmental bill passed,” Ken Cook sometimes explains. “We could not stand up to the EPA today, pass the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act.”
In fact, 2022 saw the first meaningful climate bill in years – giving money to people and companies who will invest in the clean energy revolution. Named the Inflation Reduction Act, it was signed into law by President Joe Biden, and it funnels more than $360 billion into an array of renewable energy programs that will dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while creating tens of thousands of well-paid jobs in the clean energy sector.
Corporations are often the entities conducting the most scientific research on their own products, which of course they consider from the perspective of their industry not public health.
Sometimes this means EWG is the only entity keeping pace with market innovations – the chemical innovation space alone keeps a team of EWG chemists and toxicologists reviewing hundreds of new ingredients a week. This is work that, were EWG not to do it, simply wouldn’t get done.