Changes

GreenFacts commenced in May 2001 after receiving a foundation grant from Solvay. <refname="funding figures"> [http://about.greenfacts.org/funding/figures.htm "GreenFacts' Funding Figures and History"] accessed September 2007.</ref> "Two of the founders were employees of the SOLVAY Group and obtained from their management the initial funding for the creation of GreenFacts. SOLVAY committed to support us for three years, a period after which we would have acquired sufficient recognition to diversify our income sources", GreenFacts states on its website. <ref>[http://about.greenfacts.org/organization/genesis.htm "Genesis - How and why GreenFacts was created"], accessed October 2007.</ref>

"After establishing the management board structures at the end of 2001, work began on constructing the means for communicating science to non-specialists," it stated in its 2002 annual returnAnnual Report. <ref name="2002 Annual Report">[http://about.greenfacts.org/organization/reports/annual/2002-Annual-Report.pdf "GreenFacts Foundation asbl Annual Report 2002"], 2003. </ref> Aside for establishing the organisation, the initial policy focus was publishing an online summary of the [[IPCC]] Third Assessment Report on [[climate change]] in October 2002 <ref>[http://www.greenfacts.org/studies/climate_change/index.htm GreenFacts' Digest on Climate Change], accessed October 2007. </ref>. It also decided that subsequent reports would be on "power lines, endocrine disruptors, forestry, lead and cadmium." It's hope was that, in conjunction with the implementation of its web communications startegy, it would by the end of 2003 "be identified as a valuable reference point for non-specialists looking for reliable information on environmental and health issues."<ref name="2002 Annual Report"/>

While Solvay had provided a commitment to three-year funding, GreenFacts aimed to diversify its funding to "protect from the risk" of "misleading allegations that our financial contributors may influence our publications or bind us to defend specific interests" <ref name="GreenFacts' funding rules">[http://about.greenfacts.org/funding/rules.htm GreenFacts' funding rules], accessed October 2007.</ref>. Its strategy was to "Structure a multi-sectored range of corporate members (with a larger number paying a more modest membership fee to create financial stability and remove the impression that the organization is representative of any particular industry or company)."<ref name="2002 Annual Report"/>