What is the cost of a lie? How much must be invested into a cover-up? According to some corporate giants across industries, human and environmental health is worth less than monetary gain. Corporations like Exxon, Volkswagen, and 3M have knowingly misled the public and reaped the benefits while the rest of us have suffered. Corporations recently have realized the benefits of appearing outwardly sustainable. Deutsche Bank found that 89% of examined studies show that companies with high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors outperformed the market in the medium and long term. While it is great that sustainable companies are becoming more prevalent and profitable, why should we trust their claims?

Volkswagen is a legacy automotive company that was founded in Germany in 1937 and is renowned for its quality vehicles. In 2015 they were outed by the Environmental Protection Agency for undertaking a nearly half decade long cover up. Starting in the mid 2000s, Volkswagen began to install a “cheat device” in their diesel engine vehicles that would misrepresent the emissions released from the vehicle to circumvent the U.S. Clean Air Act and other environmental policies worldwide. When the car would detect an emissions test occurring, it would switch to a cleaner mode and show emissions within parameters. Normally, these vehicles would emit more than 40 times the legal amount of noxious fumes into the air, primarily composed of NOx, a pollutant strongly associated with lung diseases and other ailments. This cheat device was put into nearly 11 million vehicles worldwide, mostly in Europe. While these cheat devices were being put in vehicles, in 2009, Volkswagen put out ads touting their clean diesel initiatives including an ad campaign stating, “Diesel is no longer a dirty word.” These ads were released by CEO Martin Winterkorn with full knowledge of the cheat device. While their former CEO Martin Winterkorn has maintained his innocence, he was charged in Germany for making false statements in relation to the incident. Since the EPA outed Volkswagen, they have paid more than $30 billion in fines, legal settlements, and penalties.

More recently, 3M and Dupont were exposed in 2020 for being aware of the toxic effects that PFAS (Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances) had on human health and the environment as early as 1976. Throughout nearly 3 decades, 3M and Dupont conducted internal studies connecting PFAS to a range of negative health effects. These studies assessed the chances of kidney, bladder, and prostate cancer and a potential connection between elevated PFAS in blood and developmental effects in children. While this research was being conducted, 3M and Dupont told their employees that PFAS had a toxicity similar to table salt and the public that it had no known adverse effects to health. They reported in 1998 that PFAS built up in human blood to the EPA but left out information about the adverse effects. Eventually, the EPA fined 3M $1.5 million for violating the Toxic Substances Control Act. This was not the end of the legal issues for PFAS manufacturers. In 2023 and 2024, these companies were in a $10.5 to $12.5 billion settlement for contaminating waterways with PFAS. 3M has since vowed to end production of PFAS by 2025.

Companies that breach public trust are not in a vacuum; it is happening everywhere around the US. In Ithaca, the dumping of PFAS is threatening Cayuga Lake. In 2022, the legal group Seneca Lake Guardian (SLG) sued the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) for issuing a permit to the solid waste facility County Line, which allowed the facility to dump 80 gallons a day of leachate containing PFAS into Cayuga Lake. Besides the human health effects, PFAS disturbs the biological activities of plants, which has the ability to stunt their growth. This has massive implications for a region that is well known for its natural beauty, wine, and culinary excellence. The majority of people who visit the Finger Lakes region come for leisure purposes, which could be gravely damaged if the grape vines are not as productive, and if the water is unsafe to swim in due to PFAS. Preventing PFAS from entering the soil and waters of the Finger Lake Region is paramount to the success of the region. To protect the region’s cultural identity, people have to stand up and fight to protect something that everyone has a stake in, rather than allowing it to be exploited by one corporation for monetary gain to the detriment of the rest of us. It is up to environmental NGOs like SLG along with the state and federal government to pursue all avenues necessary to prevent PFAS contamination in our waterways. This could be manifested in different ways, like pursuing stricter regulations, legal action, or requiring further tests during the permitting process.