New countries, new commodities: Trase gets major upgrade

The team behind the pioneering Trase supply chain transparency and sustainability platform will today unveil a raft of new capabilities and expanded platform coverage. At a meeting on the margins of the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 General Assembly in Brasília, Toby Gardner, Javier Godar and Stephen Fick will join colleagues from the Global Canopy Programme and other Trase partners to launch the upgrades, in the process kicking off a five-year programme in Latin America.

Trase is a powerful online sustainability platform that draws on vast sets of production, trade and customs data to produce detailed maps of the flows of globally traded commodities that have been linked to tropical deforestation. Reconstructing supply chains from the specific production areas right through to the consumer countries, identifying the traders and other actors along the way, and linking flows to data on deforestation and other impacts, Trase provides unprecedented power to monitor and improve supply chain sustainability and achieve deforestation commitments.

While the original beta version of Trase launched in November 2016 at COP22 in Marrakech covered only soy from Brazil, the platform now includes maps of exports from Paraguay and Argentina, as well as even better mapping of Brazilian flows. New data also cover exports of beef. There have also been significant improvements to the user interface that make it easier than ever to explore deforestation risk along the supply chains. Finally, users will for the first time be able to download the Trase data.

“We see Trase as the start of a data-driven revolution in supply chain transparency” said Godar, one of the platform’s founders. “By revealing links between supply chain actors and producer regions for the entire exported crop, it can help catalyse improvements across the board: in production practices, procurement and investment policies and the governance of supply chains by both producer and consumer governments.”

Sarah Lake, Head of the Supply Chain programme at Global Canopy Programme, said: “For companies trying to live up to their sustainability commitments, opaque supply chains are a real obstacle. Today’s major release brings us a step closer to mapping all the major supply chains driving deforestation. The platform will expand further in the future, to include other major commodities including Brazilian timber and Indonesian oil palm. Over the next five years Trase aims to cover over 70% of total production in major forest risk commodities.”

Upgrade highlights

• Soy – improved methods, more countries
  • Supply chain map for Brazilian soy: more accurate, more years covered.
  • First complete supply chain map for Paraguayan soy.
  • New data on national exports of Argentinian soy, linking export facilities to consumers globally via international traders.
• Beef – introducing a new commodity to Trase
  • Mapping of national-level beef exports from Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, from export facilities to consumer countries.
• New data portal
  • Giving users access to data on both supply chains and social and environmental indicators.
  • Powerful filtering options – by producing country, commodity, company, country, year, and indicator.
  • Facility to download the entire Trase dataset.
• Improved users interface
  
  • More detailed factsheets on production regions and trading companies.
  • Improved interactivity between the supply chain Sankey diagram and maps.
  • New tutorial screencasts.
  • Easier navigation with multiple entry points to the platform, alongside blog posts and media coverage.

Learn more about the Trase platform »