Need to address the global challenges of short-chain PFASs | 2025 BRS COPs Side Event

This side event to the 2025 meetings of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions is organized by Switzerland.

About this Event

The extreme persistence of short-chain PFASs associated with their high mobility in the water compartment means that continuous emissions lead to increasing environmental and human exposure. They will inevitably build up until toxicity thresholds are exceeded, even with little or no bioaccumulation (short-chain PFASs are generally less bioaccumulative than their long-chain counterparts). Their concentrations in groundwater and in drinking water are nowadays often higher compared to long-chain PFASs. Recent data show sharply increasing levels of certain PFASs in environmental matrices and in food.

Many short-chain PFASs can hardly been removed in drinking water treatment facilities. According to an investigation within the Forever Pollution Project, for Europe alone, it would cost around €100 billion every year to remove short-chain and ultrashort-chain PFASs, even partially, from the environment and to destroy them. Costs in other regions of the world are likely to be similarly high.

Short-chain PFASs are increasingly recognised as a cause for concern. For example, HFPO-DA, PFBS and PFHpA have been identified as substances of very high concern under REACH in the European Union.

Short-chain PFASs are subject to long-range environmental transport. In areas remote from emission sources (e.g. Arctic, Antarctic), the increase may continue for a long time due to long-range transport even after production and use have ceased.

As pollution can’t be reversed or only at a huge cost, a coordinated global approach to this urgent problem is needed.

2025 Meetings of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions

The seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention (BC COP-17), the twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention (RC COP-12) and the twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention (SC COP-12) will be held back-to-back in Geneva from 28 April to 9 May 2025. Side events to the 2025 meetings of the BRS COPs will serve as a platform for Parties and observers to share knowledge, build capacity, network and exchange on experience in the implementation of the BRS conventions. They also contribute to fostering discussions on specific issues under consideration at the COPs.

Towards the 2025 Meetings of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions