ZVO position paper on the EU Commission's PFAS cost study
The ZVO critically assesses an EU study on PFAS follow-up costs and questions its methodological basis. The position paper warns against blanket regulations without a differentiated risk analysis and sees risks for innovation, industry and value creation.
With the study "The cost of PFAS pollution for our society", the European Commission has estimated health costs in the billions for the EU. The new ZVO position paper critically analyzes the underlying model assumptions, the transparency of the calculations and the extrapolation of four individual substances to a substance group of over 10,000 PFAS.
The ZVO shows why modeled "attributable cases" should not be equated with real cases of illness and why welfare assessments do not represent real economic damage. At the same time, the association makes it clear that blanket approaches to regulation or bans without a differentiated risk analysis jeopardize innovation, technological sovereignty and industrial value creation in Europe - especially in surface technology and its key industries.