LETTER FROM OUR ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Friends,
For all of us, 2025 was quite a year. This government’s attacks on our systems of governance were dire, yet our determination has only grown. Throughout 2025, EDGI focused on rapidly responding to immediate threats while advancing our long-term goal of building more just environmental governance through the environmental right to know. We preserved reams of data and built tools to access it, documented and analyzed federal environmental data and information suppression and spin, published research on the destruction of environmental oversight and its impacts, and expanded our network to become a leader in a much larger data and information advocacy movement.
Coming into 2025, we were prepared. For nearly 10 years, we’ve been building our monitoring and analysis systems while steadily growing our network across the field. In November 2024, we launched an environmental data coalition, the Public Environmental Data Partners (PEDP), to coordinate efficient data and tools archiving. Primed for responsiveness, we were able to move quickly when federal attacks on environmental data, information, and policies hit like a firehose.
With infrastructure and partnerships in place, EDGI solidified its position as a place where researchers and analysts can channel their energy and expertise into action. In 2025, EDGI welcomed more volunteers than any year since 2017. Our volunteers across disciplinary backgrounds produced more analytical reports than ever before, and our work was covered in 191 stories in outlets from The New York Times to TIME. EDGI’s leadership in the field of environmental data governance is evident not only in this volunteer engagement and coverage, but also in our central role convening PEDP and directing funding to other organizations to build this movement.
In 2026, we are making strides toward building a better future for environmental governance. Our long-term objective to protect and improve the integrity, utility, and public oversight of environmental data, information, policies, and practices guides our work. We’re currently expanding access to our archives and analyses by building data hubs, searchable repositories, and tools to help groups leverage our work in their advocacy. We’re also building blueprints for federal policies and infrastructure and conducting critical research to ensure our interventions are grounded in theory, practice, and above all, justice.
Reflecting on the last year and the year ahead, we feel immense gratitude and hope. We are grateful for the EDGI community and especially our volunteer members who have chosen EDGI as their avenue to leverage their expertise, produce high quality research, and stand up for our environment and our democracy. The vibrancy, dedication, and diligence of our community and broader network give us hope that we will use this crisis to spur more thoughtful, just, and robust environmental governance in the months and years ahead.
Thank you for being a part of our community and a part of the change we are making.
In Solidarity,
EDGI Advisory Committee
Loading Viewer…