Richard Fuller is an Australian entrepreneur and researcher who has spent over two decades working on toxic pollution in low- and middle-income countries. After a career at IBM in Melbourne, Mr. Fuller moved to the United States in 1988 and founded Great Forest Inc., now a leading sustainability consultancy. In 1999, he founded Pure Earth to bring attention and solutions to neglected pollution crises, building it from a handful of exploratory projects into a global organization that has mapped thousands of toxic sites, completed dozens of projects to clean up lead pollution and reduce lead contamination in consumer goods, helped establish lead poisoning as an international health priority, and uncovered new evidence on how lead reaches people through food and air. Much of his early story is told in his 2015 book, The Brown Agenda. Mr. Fuller left Pure Earth in 2026 and founded the Global Toxics Research Initiative, where he continues research on toxic pollutants and public health.
Founding Pure Earth (1999)
Mr. Fuller initiated work on global pollution by founding the nonprofit Pure Earth (originally named Blacksmith Institute) in 1999. The organization’s mandate was to mitigate the impacts of pollution broadly, but especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Mr. Fuller started with exploratory projects across six countries, on issues ranging from establishing environmental regulations in Cambodia to cleaning up beaches in Mozambique to averting a potential Bhopal-like disaster at an abandoned Soviet-era chemical facility in Horlivka, Ukraine. He funded this work initially from his own resources. As measurable results accumulated, donors began to take notice and fund the organization’s programs.
Mapping Global Pollution: The Toxic Sites Identification Program and Polluted Places Reports
It soon became clear that impact would be most significant where pollution was worst: highly toxic locations in LMICs that were left unaddressed, under-resourced, and killing millions of people. Pure Earth grew steadily, adding staff and initiating projects in dozens of countries. To move from awareness into systematic action, Pure Earth launched the Toxic Sites Identification Program (TSIP) in 2005. TSIP trained local investigators to find, map, and assess contaminated sites using a standardized data collection and risk-ranking methodology, allowing Pure Earth, partner governments, and donors to prioritize the most dangerous locations. Implemented across 47 countries in partnership with UNIDO, the World Bank, USAID, the European Commission, and other international partners, TSIP has screened more than 5,000 toxic hotspots and trained over 400 investigators worldwide, building the largest global database of sites contaminated with toxic chemicals. Alongside TSIP, Mr. Fuller and Pure Earth launched the World’s Worst Polluted Places report series in 2006, an annual publication produced with Green Cross Switzerland through 2016 that identified the most severely contaminated sites on earth and brought sustained international attention to the problem.
From Data to Policy: GAHP and the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health
As Pure Earth’s reach expanded, Mr. Fuller recognized that project-level remediation work alone would not be sufficient to drive systemic change. Governments in low- and middle-income countries needed a collective voice in international forums to advocate for pollution as a development priority. In 2015, what had begun as an internal Pure Earth convening series at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center was formalized as the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP), an independent Geneva-based NGO. Mr. Fuller founded and chaired GAHP, which continues to represent its member governments within the UN system and elsewhere, with financial support from European governments and other donors.
In 2017, Mr. Fuller initiated and co-chaired the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, which brought together dozens of leading researchers to quantify the global health burden of pollution for the first time. The report generated coverage across many major international news services and helped establish pollution as a mainstream global health priority. A follow-up report was published in 2022.
Pure Earth’s Focus Lead Poisoning (2020)
In 2020, Mr. Fuller co-authored The Toxic Truth with UNICEF, a report on childhood lead exposure that helped catalyze a significant increase in donor funding and policymaker attention to the issue. Following this report, Pure Earth narrowed its focus to lead and mercury, given the outsized toll these pollutants take on public health. The decision to focus on lead proved transformative. Lead poisoning causes approximately 3.5 million deaths annually, according to IHME’s Global Burden of Disease estimates, yet had received far less international attention than other causes of comparable mortality. Mr. Fuller and Pure Earth helped make lead poisoning a priority within the international community, spearheading programs in more than a dozen countries and helping bring major donors and multilateral institutions to the issue.
Uncovering New Sources of Global Lead Exposure
Among Mr. Fuller’s most significant contributions to Pure Earth’s recent lead work was the Rapid Marketplace Screening program, a methodology he designed that Pure Earth deployed across 25 low- and middle-income countries to identify foods and consumer goods contaminated with lead. The program expanded the field’s understanding of lead exposure sources and revealed that products such as aluminum cookware, ceramics, and cosmetics might be more significant contributors than previously recognized. He also designed a similar program to measure lead in people’s homes.
Mr. Fuller developed the Lead Burden metric, also known as cumulative population blood lead level (cpBLL), which allows researchers and policymakers to compare the contribution and impact of different exposure sources across populations. A paper formalizing this metric was published in 2025 with Howard Hu and other co-authors. He also conceived of the global lead data platform www.leadpollution.org, which consolidates blood lead level data, IHME health outcome estimates, and source-attribution research in a single publicly accessible resource. Mr. Fuller serves as a Principal Collaborator on IHME’s Global Burden of Disease work in the chemicals and pollution sector.
More recently, Mr. Fuller helped identify a major gap in the field’s understanding of lead exposure. Working with Dr. Chris Kinally, he conducted a systematic review of the literature suggesting that the consumer sources identified to date such as paint, cookware, eyeliner, and others could not account for the full burden of lead poisoning observed in LMICs. A subsequent study using Total Diet Studies found that dietary lead may account for as much as half of all lead poisoning in the studied regions, pointing to food as a critical and previously underweighted exposure pathway. As these findings are disseminated and replicated, they could reshape how the international community approaches and prioritizes exposure reduction.
Mr. Fuller then led a partnership with Columbia University to investigate how lead enters the food supply. Isotopic analysis conducted in Kenya supported the hypothesis that airborne particles from industrial sources like lead acid battery recyclers travel tens or even hundreds of kilometers and settle on food crops, making foliar uptake a potentially significant exposure pathway. A broader research program is now underway in India to test whether these findings hold across other geographies.
After Pure Earth: The Founding of Global Toxics Research Initiative
In November of 2024, Mr. Fuller stepped down as Pure Earth’s President and assumed the leadership of Pure Earth’s Innovation Lab, where the organization’s research is housed. He parted with Pure Earth in July 2026. Following his departure from Pure Earth, Mr. Fuller founded the Global Toxics Research Initiative to continue research on lead poisoning and other hazardous chemicals, with a focus on airborne and dietary exposure pathways in low- and middle-income countries. He is also a staff member of Columbia University. Mr. Fuller is married with three children and resides outside New York City. You can contact Mr. Fuller at fuller(at)toxicsresearch.org.
Awards and Recognition
Order of Australia, 2018. Advance Australia Social Impact Award, 2019.
Selected Publications
The Lancet Commission on pollution and health
PJ Landrigan, R Fuller, NJR Acosta, O Adeyi, R Arnold, AB Baldé
The Lancet 391 (10119), 462-512
Pollution and health: a progress update
R Fuller, PJ Landrigan, K Balakrishnan, G Bathan, S Bose-O’Reilly
The Lancet Planetary Health 6 (6), e535-e547
Health and economic impact of air pollution in the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019
A Pandey, M Brauer, ML Cropper, K Balakrishnan, P Mathur, S Dey
The Lancet Planetary Health 5 (1), e25-e38
Assessing worker and environmental chemical exposure risks at an e-waste recycling and disposal site in Accra, Ghana
J Caravanos, E Clark, R Fuller, C Lambertson
Journal of health and pollution 1 (1), 16-25
Global burden of disease of mercury used in artisanal small-scale gold mining
N Steckling, M Tobollik, D Plass, C Hornberg, B Ericson, R Fuller
Annals of Global Health 83 (2), 234-247
The Toxic Truth: Children’s Exposure to Lead Pollution Undermines a Generation of Future Potential
N Rees, R Fuller
UNICEF and Pure Earth
Pollution and global health–an agenda for prevention
PJ Landrigan, R Fuller, H Hu, J Caravanos, ML Cropper, D Hanrahan
Environmental Health Perspectives 126 (8), 084501
Burden of disease from toxic waste sites in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines in 2010
K Chatham-Stephens, J Caravanos, B Ericson, J Sunga-Amparo
Environmental health perspectives 121 (7), 791-796
Blood lead levels in Mexico and pediatric burden of disease implications
J Caravanos, R Dowling, MM Téllez-Rojo, A Cantoral, R Kobrosly
Annals of global health 80 (4), 269-277
The Global Burden of Lead Toxicity Attributable to Informal Used Lead-Acid Battery Sites
B Ericson, P Landrigan, MP Taylor, J Frostad, J Caravanos, J Keith
Annals of Global Health 82 (5), 686-699
Global Health and Environmental Pollution
PJ Landrigan, R Fuller
International Journal of Public Health 60, 761-762
Improving and Expanding Estimates of the Global Burden of Disease due to Environmental Health Risk Factors
RM Shaffer, SP Sellers, MG Baker, R de Buen Kalman, J Frostad
Environmental Health Perspectives 127 (10), 105001
Approaches to systematic assessment of environmental exposures posed at hazardous waste sites in the developing world: the Toxic Sites Identification Program
B Ericson, J Caravanos, K Chatham-Stephens, P Landrigan, R Fuller
Environmental monitoring and assessment 185, 1755-1766
The burden of disease from pediatric lead exposure at hazardous waste sites in 7 Asian countries
J Caravanos, K Chatham-Stephens, B Ericson, PJ Landrigan, R Fuller
Environmental research 120, 119-125
Pollution and non-communicable disease: time to end the neglect
R Fuller, E Rahona, S Fisher, J Caravanos, D Webb, D Kass, T Matte
The Lancet Planetary Health 2 (3), e96-e98
The helsinki declaration 2020: Europe that protects
JI Halonen, M Erhola, E Furman, T Haahtela, P Jousilahti, R Barouki
The Lancet Planetary Health 4 (11), e503-e505
The pediatric burden of disease from lead exposure at toxic waste sites in low and middle income countries
K Chatham-Stephens, J Caravanos, B Ericson, P Landrigan, R Fuller
Environmental research 132, 379-383
Tackling air pollution, climate change, and NCDs: time to pull together
C Figueres, PJ Landrigan, R Fuller
The Lancet 392 (10157), 1502-1503
Burden of disease resulting from lead exposure at toxic waste sites in Argentina, Mexico and Uruguay
J Caravanos, J Carrelli, R Dowling, B Pavilonis, B Ericson, R Fuller
Environmental Health 15, 1-9
Niveles de Plomo en Sangre en México y su Implicación para la Carga Pediátrica de la Enfermedad
J Caravanos, R Dowling, MM Téllez-Rojo, A Cantoral, R Kobrosly
Annals of Global Health 80 (4), e1-e11
A meta-analysis of blood lead levels in India and the attributable burden of disease
B Ericson, R Dowling, S Dey, J Caravanos, N Mishra, S Fisher, M Ramirez
Environment international 121, 461-470
Using satellites to track indicators of global air pollution and climate change impacts: Lessons learned from a NASA-supported science-stakeholder collaborative
SC Anenberg, M Bindl, M Brauer, JJ Castillo, S Cavalieri, BN Duncan
GeoHealth 4 (7), e2020GH000270
Intoxicación por plomo y nivel de marginación en recién nacidos de Morelos, México
MM Téllez-Rojo, LF Bautista-Arredondo, V Richardson
Salud Pública de México 59, 218-226
A simplified risk-ranking system for prioritizing toxic pollution sites in low-and middle-income countries
J Caravanos, S Gualtero, R Dowling, B Ericson, J Keith, D Hanrahan
Annals of Global Health 80 (4), 278-285
Assessment of the prevalence of lead-based paint exposure risk in Jakarta, Indonesia
B Ericson, N Hariojati, B Susilorini, LF Crampe, R Fuller, MP Taylor
Science of the total environment 657, 1382-1388
New Initiative aims at expanding Global Burden of Disease estimates for pollution and climate
H Hu, PJ Landrigan, R Fuller, SS Lim, CJL Murray
The Lancet Planetary Health 2 (10), e415-e416
Rethinking aid allocation: Analysis of official development spending on modern pollution reduction
S Swinehart, R Fuller, R Kupka, MN Conte
Annals of Global Health 85 (1)
Hazardous waste and toxic hotspots
R Fuller
Textbook of children’s environmental health, 254-261
Guest Editorial: Focusing on What Matters Most–Impact
R Fuller, D Hanrahan, E Sanchez-Triana, J Potočnik, R Watson
Environmental Health Perspectives 131 (9), 091001
Rapid Market Screening to Assess Lead Concentrations in Consumer Products across 25 Low- and Middle-Income Countries
A Sargsyan, E Nash, G Binkhorst, JE Forsyth, B Jones, GS Ibarra, S Berg
Structured Expert Judgement Approach of the Health Impact of Various Chemicals and Classes of Chemicals
D Hanrahan, D Marti, E Sanchez-Triana, M Wells, L Corra, H Hu
medRxiv, 2024.01. 30.24301863
Invited Perspective: An Argument for Changing the Reporting Units for Lead in Blood
J Caravanos, J Nassif, B Lanphear, PJ Landrigan, H Hu, R Fuller
Environmental health perspectives 131 (9), 091303
Cumulative population blood lead levels
Fuller R, Porterfield K, Hanrahan D, Hu H.
BMJ Global Health.2025;10(3):e018145.PMID 40139801.
Quantifying the global burden of lead exposure from dietary lead intake
Kinally C, Hu H, Fuller R
medRxiv preprint, 2026. doi:10.64898/2026.07.20.26358457.