Using a combination of advocacy, research, organizing and litigation, Food & Water Watch advocates for common sense policies that will result in healthy, safe and sustainably produced food, access to clean water that is managed in the public interest, and a climate that future generations can depend on. To this end, we educate on these problems and advocate for solutions that will protect our food, water and livable climate. We organize campaigns to: ban fracking and stop new fossil fuel projects; win moratoriums on factory farms and protect food safety protections; and support our public water systems to ensure clean and affordable water for all people as a human right

FWW develops our campaigns using a sophisticated blend of policy expertise/advocacy, legal tactics, strategic communications and grassroots organizing to address threats to our most essential resources and make our democracy work for people, not powerful corporations. In short, FWW’s work is based on our analysis that it takes a movement of educated and engaged people to overcome the overwhelming power of money in our political system. As a result, our organizing model is based on creating powerful campaigns with people and local groups that are directly impacted by a problem and then developing a strategy to influence the decision maker to support (or oppose) a given policy change. We then link these more localized campaigns to larger national issues. While all elements of an advocacy campaign are important, grassroots and community organizing is at the heart of all of our work. Our campaigns to ban fracking and move to clean renewable energy are examples of this. When in 2011 we became the first national organization to call for a ban on fracking, the idea was mocked by much of the political establishment as being unrealistic and politically impossible. The oil and gas industry was too powerful, so the best we could hope for was better regulation. But in light of the growing science, and spurred on by our mission and our members, we knew that fracking could not be done safely. We persisted, and got to work, forming strong alliances with grassroots groups in the U.S. and around the world to fight for what we really needed, not just what some deemed politically possible. Knowing that climate change is a global problem, we organized the Global Frackdown to bring together groups across the planet to demonstrate mass grassroots resistance against fracking on almost every continent. Since then, we have continued to support allies internationally in their efforts to ban fracking. In 2014, we won an unprecedented victory when our political pressure forced Governor Cuomo to ban fracking in New York. Since then, we have banned fracking in Maryland and Washington, and in hundreds of communities across the country. We also recognized that fracking is more than drilling – it is the entire ecosystem of pipelines, transit networks, power plants, and export terminals. It is the expansion of the petrochemical industry into new regions that will become economic sacrifice zones. As a result, we have educated and organized and stopped new pipelines, export terminals, and other fossil fuel infrastructure projects that directly threaten people’s lives and health in states around the country and have played a leadership role in shifting the national debate on fracking. In 2011, only eight short years ago, we were alone on the national stage in calling for a ban on fracking; today, it is the consensus position in the environmental sector and there are 10 (as of this writing!) presidential candidates who share this view.

FWW was founded in 2005 and since then, with the support of our members, individual donors and foundations, FWW has grown to more than 100 staff in 15 locations in 14 US States (including DC) and satellite operations in Central America and Europe. FWW has an online activist base of over 1,000,000 people and a volunteer network of real world activists linked to our field offices. Our organizers do the necessary grassroots education and mobilization so that regular people in their local communities can take action around specific national, state, and local issues in order to protect the health and safety of our food and water sources. We support and amplify our online and real world organizing with FWW’s research, policy advocacy, litigation, and broad-based communications capacities. While FWW’s mission is focused on long-term systemic changes that will result in healthy food and clean water for all, we develop shorter-term campaigns to take on pressing national, state and local issues. Additionally, Food & Water Justice uses the courts to shine a light on corporate abuses and hold government officials accountable to protect our access to healthy food and clean water. Our sister organization, Food & Water Action, runs hard hitting advocacy campaigns to hold elected officials accountable in elections as well as applying lobbying pressure for laws we need to protect our most vital resources

As our goal is to build the civic power that can make our democracy work so that we can win systemic policy changes that will protect people and our environment, most of our campaigns unfold over the course of several years (or longer). We track metrics towards these goals within each program and campaign. In addition, we know that it will take significant resources and a strong organization to win these campaigns over a long time horizon, so we also measure progress through organizational metrics that are interim markers of our growing power and effective reach. So, while our ultimate effectiveness is measured by the campaigns we win (e.g., a ban on fracking in New York or a water bottling plant stopped in Oregon’s Cascade Locks), we know these policy victories can take years. We also see part of our effectiveness in the lasting grassroots organizations and diverse leadership developed through our campaigns. Because of the time periods involved, we track our interim progress through metrics that show institutional strength as well as campaign-related activities, such as: • Membership and donation growth • Number of resolutions passed • Number of email actions taken • Number of "press hits" • Number of letters to the editor and community commentaries • Number of social media shares • Number of community events • Number of research materials produced • Number of volunteers and coalition partners recruited

Food & Water Watch's accomplishments in our major programs include: Climate & Energy: -Worked to get OFF Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act introduced in Congress. It is the strongest climate change bill ever at the federal level, and would mandate a just transition to 100% clean renewable energy by 2035. That bill helped set the foundation for efforts around a Green New Deal, where we are now focusing our efforts at the federal level to ensure climate legislation addresses and stops the continuing use of more fossil fuels that are the primary drivers of global climate change that is threatening life on the planet. -Passed more than 500 local resolutions against fracking and stopped the construction of many new fossil fuel projects like pipelines and export terminals (e.g., in New York and New Jersey, among other places). -Banned fracking in 4 states (New York, Washington, Vermont, and Maryland). The movement to ban fracking and move off of fossil fuels is now a powerful and growing global movement that is linked up with global advocacy to stop climate change. has now become a nationwide ideal and Food: -Launched a Factory Farm campaign , with a focus to ban factory farms that produce huge amounts of waste, anti-biotic resistant bacteria, and drive small, independent farms out of business. -Organized a successful campaign to convince the FDA to ban the use of arsenic in chicken feed, making Maryland the first state to prohibit the chemical’s use in poultry production. This is now a ban at the national level as well. -Blocked imports of processed chicken products from China. The FDA rarely inspects imported food despite a well-documented pattern of chemical adulteration and unsafe drug residues. Water: -Introduced The Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability (WATER) Act. This bill was first introduced in 2016, and we got it reintroduced in 2018, and we now have at least 75 co-sponsors for this important legislation that will protect clean public water, dedicate federal funds for water infrastructure upgrades to replace lead pipes in homes and schools, increase access to safe water and sanitation for small rural and tribal communities, and make water service safe and affordable for all. -Prevented Nestle from opening a water bottling plant in multiple towns along the Columbia River Gorge in both Washington and Oregon. -Pressured the Baltimore City Council to amend the City Charter to declare the sewer system and water supply system as “inalienable”, prohibiting their sale and lease. -Worked with dozens of communities across the country to prevent the sale of local water systems to private water companies.