The Environmental Working Group is an American activist group that specializes in research and advocacy in the areas of agricultural subsidies, toxic chemicals, drinking water pollutants, and corporate accountability. EWG is a nonprofit organization. Founded in 1993 by Ken Cook and Richard Wiles, EWG is headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States. A sister lobbying organization, the EWG Action Fund was founded in 2002. The accuracy of EWG reports and statements have been criticized, as has its funding by the organic food industry. Its warnings have been labeled "alarmist", "scaremongering" and "misleading". Despite the questionable status of its work, EWG has been influential.
Projects
The EWG issues various product safety warnings. Environmental historian James McWilliams has described these warnings as fear mongering and misleading, and wrote that there is little evidence to support the claims made by the EWG. "The transparency of the USDA’s program in providing the detailed data is good because it reveals how insignificant these residues are from a health perspective. Unfortunately, the EWG misuses that transparency in a manipulative way to drive their fear-based, organic marketing agenda." According to Forbes contributor Kavin Senapathy, the EWG "frightens consumers about chemicals and their safety, cloaking fear mongering in a clever disguise of caring and empowerment." Senapathy included two main areas of criticism for the organization including: methodologies used by the EWG for "food, cosmetics, children’s products and more are fundamentally flawed...", and the EWG is largely funded by organic companies and does not assess or discuss pesticides from organic farming.
EWG has created a cosmetics database which indexes and scores products based on EWG's views of their ingredients. Their Guide to Pesticides in Produce lists 44 fruits and vegetables based on the number of pesticides that were found to contain according to United States Department of Agriculture data. The organization has also constructed a database of tap water testing results from public water utilities.
Critics of the Dirty Dozen list have suggested that it significantly overstates the risk to consumers of the listed items, and that the methodology employed in constructing the list "lacks scientific credibility". A 2011 study showed that the items on the list had safe levels of chemical residue or none at all. A 2011 analysis of the USDA's PDP data by Steve Savage found that 99.33% of the detectable residues were below the EPA tolerance and half of the samples were more than 100 times below.
Sunscreens
In July 2008, the EWG first published an analysis of over 900 sunscreens. The report concluded that only 15% of the sunscreens met the group's criteria for safety and effectiveness. In 2009, EWG updated Skin Deep with a report on chemicals in sunscreen, lip balm, and SPF lotions. The report states that three out of five sunscreen products offer inadequate protection from the sun, or contain ingredients with significant safety concerns. The report identifies only 17% of the products on the market as both safe and effective, blocking both UVA and UVB radiation, remaining stable in sunlight, and containing few if any ingredients with significant known or suspected health hazards. Oxybenzone is on the list and blocks both forms of radiation, but has been deemed unsafe by the EWG due to controversy over its potential estrogenic and anti-androgenic effects. Representatives of the sunscreen industry called the 2008 sunscreen report inaccurate. Commenting on the 2010 sunscreen report, Zoe Draelos, of Duke University and spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology, said the group made unfair "sweeping generalizations" in its report and their recommendations were based on "very old technology".
Finances and funding
For the fiscal year ending December 2015, EWG raised nearly $13.7 million and spent $12.5 million. Over 84 cents out of every dollar go toward EWG's program expenses. President Ken Cook earned $289,022 in reportable income in 2015.
