Looking back at 2024, and ahead to 2025

Happy New Year! Thank you for your interest in and support of our work over the past year.

Frontier Group’s research and writing during 2024 served as a reminder that America’s biggest problems transcend our political and cultural divides, and that the solutions to those problems are often closer at hand than we might think.

Here is a quick review of what we achieved in 2024 and are looking forward to in 2025.

From trash to treasure: Rethinking our relationship with “stuff”

Waste is at the root of many of America’s biggest problems, from the plastic trash in our rivers and ocean waters to the warming of the global climate. Our work in 2024 highlighted practical solutions to the problems of waste:

Bans on single-use plastic grocery bags in just a few of the many cities that have adopted them are eliminating the use of about 6 billion plastic bags each year, according to our January report with Environment America Research & Policy Center and U.S. PIRG Education Fund, “Plastic Bag Bans Work.” The report called attention to a loophole in some bag policies that reduces their effectiveness – a loophole that California lawmakers eliminated following release of our report. The report was covered by more than 200 media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, Fox News and The Hill, and was accompanied by an online calculator you can use to estimate the potential impact of banning single-use plastic bags in your area.

A new generation of eco-conscious companies are going beyond eliminating plastic bags, showing us what a world without all wasteful plastic packaging might look like. Our report on the rise of refill stores and other startups developing no-waste and low-waste alternatives to packaging-intensive forms of retail highlighted some of the exciting companies leading the movement to eliminate plastic packaging. The report was featured in The Washington Post.

The world currently throws away more copper and cobalt in electronic waste than could be produced over the next decade by destructive deep-sea mining in the central Pacific, according to our June report, “We Don’t Need Deep-Sea Mining.” The report, which highlighted the ways that reducing waste can help meet the need for so-called “critical minerals,” received coverage in Wired and the Los Angeles Times. On the Frontier Group website, intern Caroline Crowley explained the risks deep-sea mining poses to sensitive ocean ecosystems, and analyst James Horrox argued that a groundbreaking discovery that alters our understanding of how oxygen is produced in deep ocean waters underscores the urgency of a moratorium on this harmful and unnecessary practice.

Wasting food creates climate pollution and requires the use of more land, water and chemicals for farming. And, at a time when many don’t have enough to eat, it’s just absurd. Our report with MASSPIRG Education Fund, “How to Reduce Food Waste in Massachusetts,” highlighted how one state is reducing food waste and proposed a comprehensive blueprint for how it can take its food waste prevention efforts to the next level.

Renewable energy on the rise, but mixed progress on climate

Now in its eighth year, our Renewables on the Rise dashboard with Environment America Research & Policy Center showed that renewable energy is on the rise in all 50 states – “red”, “blue” and “purple” alike – with big increases in solar energy and other key technologies in states that have historically lagged in the race for clean energy, such as in the Southeast.

Our analysis of EPA greenhouse gas emissions data, published in November, found that global warming emissions have declined in nearly every state over the last two decades (though not by nearly enough to meet America’s climate targets). Big challenges remain, however: increased oil and gas production caused emissions to rise in several states, meaning that maintaining momentum on climate protection will require not only the continued elimination of coal-fired power plants, but also a reduction in emissions from oil and gas production and consumption. And the job of cleaning up the nation’s dirtiest power plants is far from over, as Elizabeth Ridlington documented in her analysis of the nation’s worst climate polluters. Our interactive dashboard received media coverage in the San Antonio Report, the Chicago Daily Herald and elsewhere.

Protecting public health

Parents should be able to expect that schools are doing everything they can to protect their children’s safety – including keeping lead out of the drinking water supplied on school premises. Our September investigation with PennEnvironment found that many school districts in Pennsylvania are failing to meet that obligation. Our analysis was covered by more than 200 media outlets, including Fox, NPR, and the Philadelphia Enquirer. Since our report was released, new funding has been allocated to enable Pennsylvania’s school districts to replace old drinking fountains with lead-filtering water stations.

Last year’s devastating hurricanes were a reminder of the risks that extreme weather poses to our environment, as well as our communities. Released in October, our updated “Accidents Waiting to Happen” report looked at the threats posed to our rivers, lakes and streams by the thousands of facilities storing or transporting oil, toxic chemicals or coal ash in close proximity to waterways. Check out our accompanying factsheets on how factory farms, transport of hazardous materials by rail, and oil pipelines threaten spills that can cause catastrophic environmental damage.

Other highlights

On the Frontier Group website, Tony Dutzik reflected on his family’s firsthand experience of “the energy-saving magic of heat pumps and electric vehicles.” James Horrox looked at two vital conservation laws likely to face new challenges in the next few years and wrote on the rise of “rewilding” and the conservation benefits of leaving nature to its own devices. In other conservation news, interns Jonah Vu and Hailey Seo explained how monoculture farming practices are contributing to the collapse of bee populations and how nature-based infrastructure can keep our kids cool in a warming world. And with new proposals for expanded offshore drilling on the table, we examined the lasting damage caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and how wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico is still suffering 14 years later.

Elsewhere, we discussed the environmental impacts of widespread overuse of concrete and other impervious materials in our cities and the growing movement to get rid of them where they’re not needed. Tony Dutzik looked at how a proposed oil and gas loophole weakening environmental protections for “split estate” lands could put the West’s environment at risk. And Elizabeth Ridlington wrote about her family’s struggles with the expensive and confusing world of college textbooks accompanying her report on automatic textbook billing, published in June, which found that this system keeps students locked into an uncompetitive textbook market and limits the spread of free, open educational resources, with little or no financial benefits for students.

As the calendar flips to 2025, we look forward to releasing new research on the massive impacts of rising energy demand from data centers, the dubious environmental benefits of hydrogen fuel, the surprisingly big climate benefits of building consumer products to last (and fixing them when they break), and the role instant permitting can play in making it faster, easier and cheaper for families across America to “go solar.” We’ll also be keeping a close eye on efforts to expand fossil fuel and uranium production on public lands, documenting the stakes at play for our environment and public health.

From all of us, best wishes for a happy, healthy and meaningful 2025.