Films Investigating Global Manufacturing Screened at D.C. Environmental Film Festival

On Thursday, March 27, 2025, the Pulitzer Center gathered attendees in downtown Washington, D.C., for a film screening and panel investigating how global manufacturing shapes local environments. The series of three short films marked the Pulitzer Center’s 14th annual screening with the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital (DCEFF), a 10-day showcase of environmental filmmaking with screenings around the city.

At a time crucial to stopping the advance of global warming, the films show how corporations play a key role in both the destruction and protection of our environment. This year’s program, “Industrial Currents,” spotlighted how local communities are left to deal with the consequences of global supply chains, attempting to protect their health, homes, and livelihoods with little information and support. From production to disposal, a lack of transparency and regulation exacerbates environmental destruction throughout the life cycle of a product.

“Governments don’t always have communities’ best interests at heart,” panelist Anton L. Delgado said. “It's difficult for governments to prioritize local communities when they see a really big tax break or major investments from these [industries], and we see that across the board. I think there's certainly times [in the U.S.] where corporations outweigh the community needs; that isn’t something that is particular to developing nations.”
 

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The three films from vastly different locations tell hauntingly similar stories of individuals left to grapple with irresponsible corporate conduct. Following the screening, Delgado, a Pulitzer Center 2022 & 2023 Rainforest Investigation Fellow, and Josh Axelrod, Senior Program Advocate of Nature at the Natural Resources Defense Council, explored policies and regulations aimed at curbing pollution in a conversation moderated by climate video journalist Eli Kintisch.

Filmmaker Pawanjot Kaur’s documentary highlights citizen-led initiatives intended to build a “just transition” to newer means of livelihood as mines close and unemployment rises. As India commits to net-zero emissions, the film follows how a computer technician, a feminist social worker, and a fish farmer from India’s Jharkhand coal region are navigating rigid administrative and social systems to create alternate skill platforms for coal communities to transition to green jobs.

“When you think about just transitions, it really is a long-term planning exercise,” Axelrod said. “If you make that commitment, are you at the same time beginning to invest in what those communities will need for alternative livelihoods?”

The concept of “just transitions” began in the 1980s with movements by U.S. trade unions, and has gained traction in recent years as governments make commitments to slow the worsening effects of climate change. Equitable regulation frameworks have proven difficult to establish and enforce, though, especially in economies reliant on informal sectors. Almost 40% of coal workers in Jharkhand work informally, without a guaranteed minimum wage and no rights.

“The film is a great snapshot of how difficult [just transitions are] in an economy that is still maturing, where work is done by casual employees,” Axelrod said. “Ideally, it is not having to be led by the communities themselves—they should certainly be in the room dreaming up the ideas—but ideally, the government that has facilitated the extractive industry is there providing the support necessary.” 
 

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In Lesotho, grantees Sechaba Mokhethi, Pascalinah Kabi, and Billy Ntaote from the MNN Centre for Investigative Journalism uncovered how first-world consumer choices pollute the environment. Their documentary investigates the negligence that allows textile factories to pollute local water sources by ignoring the law requiring factories to pre-treat wastewater. When factories cut costs and directly pump wastewater into the sewage systems, they overflow, causing chemicals to run into natural streams.

“Contaminated water not only makes its way into natural wells and streams that poor communities and their livestock rely on to live, but it also ends up flowing into the vital Orange-Senqu river basin. This basin is a source of water for 15 million people in Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa,” Kabi writes.

Despite the potential health risks, investigations allege regulators have turned a blind eye to malpractice to protect investor confidence and prevent massive job losses. The clothing and textile industry is valued at $2.4 trillion globally and directly employs 300 million people worldwide, according to the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion.

“I think something that unites a lot of these developing nations is industries like the garment industry,” Delgado said. “The garment industry is the fourth [largest] of the Cambodian economy; it's a huge part of the Vietnamese economy; and it's a huge part of the economy back home in the Philippines… I think governments, especially in the developing world, will prioritize what they see as something that will impact everybody. And if one community can take an environmental hit and that benefits the country, then unfortunately, at times, they will lean towards that.”

Axelrod argued that environmentalists have failed to convince the public that environmental health is fundamentally an economic issue. “It increases the cost of food and increases the cost of home insurance; it burns down our homes; it destroys entire industries. Those are severe economic costs that are caused by environmental degradation. But we have separated the two things in our public discourse, and it harms the work that environmentalists or regulators are doing to try and make things better or safer.”

The third film of the evening by 2023 Ocean Network Reporting Fellow Aryn Baker illustrated how locals in Fiji are left to dispose of global plastic waste brought in by the tides. Many turn to burning, often the simplest option, despite it releasing toxins with deleterious impacts on human and ecosystem health.

“I think Fiji is an excellent example of a place that geographically is being punished for climate change and the plastics production,” Delgado said. “So little of it is produced in Fiji and consumed in Fiji, yet they're dealing with all of our waste. Countries like Vietnam, which is at the bottom of the Mekong River, have a huge plastic crisis and suffer similarly. These countries are being geographically disadvantaged and being asked to pick up after the rest of us with very little support and/or funding, and I think we've seen that fail several times.”

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“The visuals that I saw in… all three segments were very familiar, which is sad but also pretty realistic,” an audience member from Myanmar said. “I can see the impacts that global companies have had on the rural communities that don’t have any other means of making a livelihood, just because of the lack of infrastructure and the lack of financial power the government has to give opportunities for the people there.”

Over the past five years, the number of national and voluntary actions to tackle the plastic pollution problem has increased by 60%. Despite this, plastic pollution has continued to increase by 50%, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Recently, the United Nations has led efforts to create a Global Plastics Treaty, aimed at supporting and incentivizing a path to a future free from plastic pollution. Despite five intergovernmental negotiation meetings, the treaty remains in a deadlock, despite original goals of implementing the treaty as soon as 2025.

“I thought the idea of the global plastic treaty was beautiful because it focused on the life cycle of plastic,” Delgado said. “They wanted to go after the chemicals that were put into plastic, which is what makes burning them so dangerous, all the way to climb down production and forcing recycling. That has not passed. And I think, unfortunately, a small group of countries that benefit so greatly from plastic production are keeping this new regulation from coming into effect.”

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The average consumer is unaware of the complete lifecycle of their everyday purchases; it is difficult to gather accurate information on where products are being produced and disposed of. Even more difficult is regulating corporations and holding them accountable for pollution generated in each step of their intricate global supply chains.

“It takes finding a good target and then really going after them,” Axelrod said. “Often, you need a corporation that is making public statements around its sustainability and its commitment to doing good things, and then finding proof that they don't do that and putting it out there… to catch shareholder attention, [and force] responses from the companies themselves to really seeing an increase in alternatives that are far more sustainable.”

Audiences asked the panelists questions about how to capture audience attention with environmental reporting and how communities can accelerate solutions to the issues featured in the films.

“It requires vigilance and watching,” Axelrod said. “A lot of the reason we have gotten to the place we have with strong regulation is because, originally, people started paying attention and noticing what was wrong and asking for a change. I think, unfortunately, we're back in a situation where I think we'll have to see that kind of organizing among ourselves, among the public, to really push for taking care of the environment.”

Another audience member, Sally Lau, noted the “power and effect” of journalistic storytelling in shaping “public opinions and affecting support for change.” 

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