Trase has announced a leadership transition, appointing SEI York’s Chris West as co-director, succeeding Toby Gardner after his tenure in the role. Chris will join Helen Bellfield, Deputy Executive Director at Global Canopy and continuing co-director of Trase. Trase is a not-for-profit partnership co-directed by SEI and Global Canopy, and was co-founded in 2015.

Chris has been a key member of the Trase team for nine years in his role leading SEI York’s Sustainable Consumption and Production group. He has led a number of important projects for Trase, in particular the development of SEI’s global commodity consumption model which enables Trase to provide comprehensive assessments of the deforestation exposure of countries such as Germany and other EU member states , as well as measuring their biodiversity impacts using the Global Environmental Impacts of Consumption indicator. He has also actively supported Trase’s work with the private sector and governments in guiding policy development and monitoring.

Chris says “I’m incredibly excited to take on the role of co-director, alongside Helen, to lead Trase’s diverse and exceptional team and to work more closely with our international partner organisations. In the coming years, I’m particularly looking forward to collectively realising the breadth and depth of Trase’s new five-year strategy, including our emerging work linked to major international markets, new sectors, and new metrics for global supply chain resilience, that will provide us with new entry-points for transforming the sustainability of deforestation-exposed supply chains.”

Toby Gardner has been Trase’s director and then co-director since the start of the initiative 11 years ago. He has played a critical leadership role in building innovative data products that have increased transparency of global commodity markets and informed decision making to drive systemic change. Toby remains at SEI where he will continue to work on Trase supporting our research and engagement agendas.

Toby says “The idea for founding Trase emerged in a corridor conversation at COP20 in Lima, and the journey ever since that moment has been incredible. Fast forward a decade and Trase has helped achieve myriad transparency breakthroughs, challenged assumptions with our data and analyses, shaped new legislation, removed information barriers to supply chain action and helped strengthen accountability. But the thing that makes me far prouder than anything else is the people – the past and current members of the team from whom I have learned so much, and who have done so much to make Trase such an inspiring and friendly place to work. I have never been more confident about the team or had more belief in the importance of our work, and I am excited to continue doing what I can to support the team with a new hat.”