Methodology

Trase's approach to mapping supply chains

Trase catalyses action by analysing agricultural commodity supply chains, linking consumer markets and commodity traders to production regions, and assessing exposure to deforestation, carbon emissions and other sustainability impacts

The supply chain mapping at the core of Trase balances scale and data resolution. It uses an enhanced form of material flow analysis called Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems (SEI-PCS). Trase's approach offers the capability to:

• Systematically link individual supply chain actors to specific, subnational production regions, and the sustainability risks and investment opportunities associated with those regions.
• Identify the individual companies that export, ship and import a given traded commodity.
• Cover all of the exports of a given commodity from a given country of production.

Trase is also at the forefront of developing methods and data products that map commodity trade and embedded impacts at global scales, using national data and economic modelling (e.g. https://commodityfootprints.earth/), and in domestic markets (e.g. for Brazilian beef through Trase´s partnership with the Do Pasto ao Prato initiative), alongside innovations in geospatial intelligence to link agricultural expansion and supply chain assets to deforestation and other impacts.