Environmental Defense Fund : In Their Own Words

What They Tell You About:

Funding

FundingEDF claims to shun support from corporate interests in the belief that, To be truly effective in achieving meaningful and significant environmental gains, we must maintain our independence and our organizational integrity.

Funding

What They're Not Telling You

Its nearly $100 million annual budget means fundraising is a full time job at EDF that drives its political agenda.

EDF and the Environmental Defense Action Fund (EDAF), EDFs lobbying arm, are deeply immersed in contentious debates (industrial pollution, cap and trade, and clean energy) occurring on Capitol Hill and in local communities.

After Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $6 million to EDF to support the organizations strategy of securing strong rules and developing industry best practices in states with intense natural gas production, environmentalists denounced EDF for its hypocrisy and betrayal of their commitment to a clean environment.

Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter hit EDF hard: this is EDFs modus operandi. In fact, for years, public interest advocates have rolled their eyes and complained to one another in private about how EDF undercuts their work time and time again. But, everyone is afraid to speak out because they might upset funders, who are turned off by disagreements among environmentalists. Maybe its time to redefine exactly what protecting the environment means.

The Tough Questions:
How much of EDFs budget is beholden to agenda-driven politics and not to solv[ing] the most critical environmental problems facing the planet?