We're delighted to have won in the 'Conflict & Climate Change' category at this year's Covering Climate Now awards with a project in partnership with our colleagues at Le Monde 🏆

At dawn in Accra, Ghana, Lydia Bamfo (51) sets out to collect plastic waste. For 25 years she’s battled the tide of rubbish overwhelming her city. Now she says the World Bank’s “solution” has done nothing to help workers like her. 🧵

NEW: SourceMaterial's investigation into a World Bank-backed plastic credits scheme shows it has sparked controversy in Accra, Ghana. Waste picker associations say they are 'sick and tired' of the 'false solution'. With @ajenglish.bsky.social: www.aljazeera.com/features/lon...

Keir Starmer said he's "tightening the screws" on Putin as he announced a raft of new sanctions, including two companies involved in crewing and managing ships involved in Russia's illegal oil exports. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

The French oil giant Total has quietly abandoned its offsetting project in the Republic of Congo, @reporterre.net reports. Back in December 2022, farmers told us the tree-planting project had barred them from their fields and threatened their livelihoods. www.source-material.org/total-oil-co...

Fresnillo is a goldminer worth £8bn, listed on the London Stock Exchange and majority-owned by the billionaire Baillères family. For years it has been locked in a bitter dispute with the Bajío agrarian community on whose land it encroached in the desert of Mexico's Sonora state.

The data centre boom in the desert: in Nevada, tech companies are transforming the landscape by building huge data centres and using vast amounts of water in the process. Read @jtemple.bsky.social's long-read for @techreviewjp.bsky.social here: www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

This week MPs debated UK waste tyres illegally burned in India following our investigation with BBC File on 4 Investigates. "Investigators used GPS tracking devices in several consignments of waste tyres" to expose the trade, says MP @tessamunt.bsky.social. www.source-material.org/waste-tyre-p...

Pope Francis was a pontiff in a new mould: an advocate for migrant rights and global action on climate change. Those positions won him powerful enemies. In 2019 our investigation The Heretic in the Vatican revealed the extent of the plot against him. www.source-material.org/the-heretic-...

We're incredibly excited to welcome @rosafurneaux.bsky.social to our team.

NEW: SourceMaterial's investigation identified 38 active data centres operated by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in parts of the world already facing water scarcity, as well as 24 more under development. Read the full story here: www.source-material.org/amazon-micro...

“The question of water is going to become crucial,” says @lopalasi.bsky.social, founder of The Ethical Tech Society, as our investigation reveals data centres are being developed in the driest parts of the world. www.source-material.org/amazon-micro...

“They're using too much water. They're using too much energy,” said Aurora Gómez of the campaign group Tu Nube Seca Mi Río—Spanish for ‘Your cloud is drying my river’—commenting on our investigation into data centres in Aragon. Read the full story here: www.source-material.org/amazon-micro...

New from me: I've spent the last 6 months compiling a map of data centres, whose locations are generally secret, operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Cross-referencing that map with areas of water scarcity shows many are in the world's driest areas. www.source-material.org/amazon-micro...

Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas A really clever data story from @source-material.org and the Guardian. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

NEW: Big Tech’s data centre push will take water from the world’s driest areas, our investigation with the @theguardian.com has found. We saw examples from five continents of the strain data centres are putting on communities already short of water. www.source-material.org/amazon-micro...

The Carbon Offset Trap: BBC File on 4 has taken an in-depth look at the current state of carbon markets. Our reporter @lukewbarratt.bsky.social spoke to them about some of their findings. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Impact: Our investigation with File on 4 Investigates has led to action! The government is reviewing UK tyre exports to India after our report showed they end up in highly polluting pyrolysis plants, with officials "very keen" to investigate the claims. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

18 months ago, we reported on a "blueprint for disaster"—a plan to bring controversial carbon offsets into the Paris Agreement. Now the first credits issued as part of this plan have been placed in one rating agency's lowest category. calyxglobal.com/research-hub...

"The Environment Agency is undertaking an internal review of its approach to waste tyre shipments to India." Two days after our report with @bbcradio4.bsky.social on UK tyres being dangerously 'boiled' in India, the UK announces a review of the trade. www.source-material.org/waste-tyre-p...

Motorists are told that their old tyres are being recycled. Our latest investigation follows the secret trade in used tyres to India, where they are in fact broken down to make cheap home heating oil in polluting and dangerous plants. www.source-material.org/waste-tyre-p...

@fightingdirty.bsky.social has launched legal action in a bid to “shut down the illegal trade in waste tyres that is poisoning India” This comes after @source-material.org and the BBC found that millions of tyres exported from the UK are being burned illegally www.endsreport.com/article/1911...

🧵Twice a day, sirens sound in the shadow of Touk Meas Mountain in Kampot province, Cambodia. "We're often coughing," said Pheara, who lives nearby. Here, a cement kiln producing hazardous emissions is supposedly at the heart of the global fight against plastic pollution.

We looked into plastic offsetting, which major plastic producers are touting as a way of solving the pollution crisis. Our analysis shows that most plastic credits are awarded for burning plastic.

NEW: A cement kiln in Cambodia, burning plastic, is supposedly at the heart of the global fight against plastic pollution. Locals say they've been getting sick ever since it was built, as have their children. www.source-material.org/plastic-cred...

JOB APPLICATION DEADLINE: 9 February. If you were thinking of applying to join us as a senior investigative journalist, you have until Sunday to send in your application! www.cisionjobs.co.uk/job/111593/s...

Seafarers dread working on the creaking, unsafe shadow fleet that ships Russian oil. Along with partners at @ftm.nl and Süddeutsche Zeitung, we investigated the companies putting them there — and found some in troubling locations.

Late last year, we reported that Dawn Meats, Europe's biggest supplier of lamb, could break emissions laws with its new incinerator in rural Ireland. Now, the Irish EPA has acted, amending the licence to make clear to the company the rules it must follow.

#Ireland: Whistleblowing = Impact Following investigations by @source-material.org & @irishtimes.com based on documents from @climatewhistles.bsky.social, Ireland's EPA has amended Dawn Meats' licence, slashing SO2 limits. SO2 would have threatened local residents' health. Speaking up matters.

TotalEnergies wants to build a $20 billion gas plant in Mozambique's troubled Cabo Delgado province. With @lemonde.fr, we investigated what Total knew about allegations of wrongdoing by the troops it funded. www.source-material.org/total-mozamb...

We're hiring! If you're an investigative journalist with a nose for a story and a taste for collaborative working, we'd love to hear from you. www.cisionjobs.co.uk/job/111593/s...

The @nytimes.com has published a piece on the Italian fraudster Samuele Landi, who founded his own country on a barge in the Persian Gulf and used his influence in Liberia to set up a vast carbon offsetting deal with the UAE. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/b...

A flagship carbon capture project is being challenged in the UK courts. The government is so desperate for BP and Equinor to get building that it will pay up to £6bn if the project is found to breach Britain's climate commitments. www.source-material.org/bp-equinor-t...

The world's biggest carbon offsetting registry, Verra, failed to properly investigate allegations of human rights abuses against Indigenous people in Cambodia, the NGO @carbonmarketwatch.bsky.social says. SourceMaterial visited the project to investigate. www.source-material.org/singapore-ca...

A group of current and former members of the expert panel of the carbon crediting industry's self-regulatory body, the ICVCM, have a post objecting to the ICVCM's approval of three tropical forest carbon REDD methodologies. A very timely and important read: www.oeko.de/blog/the-icv...

Two members of a key expert panel of a council overseeing carbon offsetting, have resigned after the council approved three ways of creating offsets through forestry programmes. They say these new methodologies lack credibility. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

🚨 "An incredibly important and welcome tipping point" 🚨 👇 Read our response to today's announcement that the Home Office and the City of London Police have established a new Domestic Corruption Unit.

Hello Bluesky! We are SourceMaterial, an investigative newsroom covering stories relating to climate, corruption and democracy.