Trase

Trase maps the international trade and financing of commodities such as soy, beef and palm oil, enabling companies, investors and governments to address tropical deforestation.

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Last updated on 22 November 2023

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Toby Gardner / toby.gardner@sei.org

What is Trase?

Soy plantation in Tocantins, Brazil, August 2020 — A soy plantation in Tocantins, Brazil during an expedition by the Rainforest Foundation to monitor the relationship between soy production in Brazil and its relationship with the deforestation of the Cerrado and Amazonia biomes, August 2020. Photo: Victor Moriyama / Rainforest Foundation.

Soy, palm oil and cocoa is driving tropical deforestation worldwide, destroying wildlife habitats, affecting local communities and exacerbating climate change. Global trade flows and opaque supply chains make it complex to tackle these impacts.

Trase is a data-driven transparency initiative that maps the international trade and financing of key commodities associated with tropical deforestation. As of 2021, Trase had mapped over 60% of this global trade, making it the world’s most comprehensive open-access database on this trade.

Trase began in 2015 as a joint initiative of Global Canopy and the Stockholm Environment Institute; the mapping of financial links was added in 2020 in partnership with Neural Alpha. Visit trase.earth to access Trase tools, explore Trase data and Insights, and to find out more.

Explore Trase

Who is Trase for?

Palm tree farm and factory with smoke, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. Photo: Herman Uk / Shutterstock.

Trase’s free online data tools and analysis are used by governments, companies, financial institutions and civil society organizations to take practical steps to address deforestation.

Read case studies and highlights of Trase’s work to find out how Trase data, tools and Insights have supported action on deforestation.

Understanding soy deforestation risk in leather products: A group of luxury fashion brands asked Trase to identify hotspots of deforestation risk in their supply chains for leather – not from cattle farmed in high-risk areas, but from soy present in animal feed.
Storebrand Asset Management deforestation risk assessment: Trase worked with Storebrand Asset Management to demonstrate how investors can identify and assess deforestation risk in their portfolios to inform engagement and divestment activities.
Germany prepares for EU law on deforestation-free imports: Trase was commissioned by GIZ on behalf of BMZ to assess Germany’s deforestation risk exposure to support action to achieve deforestation-free supply chains.
Key sources of deforestation risk for Europe revealed: Trase analysis shows the opportunities for Amsterdam Declarations Partnership countries as they look to tackle commodity-driven deforestation.
EU urged to widen deforestation law: Trase was commissioned by the Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA) group in the European Parliament to investigate the implications of the ecosystem scope of a draft anti-deforestation law.

How does Trase work?

Trase maps supply chains by bringing together disparate, publicly available data to connect consumer markets to deforestation and other impacts in producer countries.

Trase builds on an enhanced form of material flow analysis called Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems (SEI-PCS) originally developed by Godar et al. (2015). Unlike other supply chain mapping approaches:

It systematically links individual supply chain actors to specific subnational production regions and the sustainability risks and investment opportunities associated with those regions.
It identifies the individual companies that export, ship and import a given traded commodity.
It covers all of the exports of a given commodity from a given country of production.

Trase Finance combines Trase supply chain maps with data on company financing and ownership structures, bringing transparency to how commodity-driven deforestation is financed.

Visit the Trase website for more detailed information on the methods and datasets used by Trase to map supply chains, as well as the methodology used by Trase Finance.

Partners

Trase began in 2015 as a joint initiative of Global Canopy and the Stockholm Environment Institute. We work closely with data developers, researchers, designers, institutes and other partners. A full list of Trase partners can be found at the Trase website.

Funders

The work of Trase today is made possible through the generous funding of three major donors: Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF), together with additional support from the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the European Union and UK aid from the UK Government.

The grant from NICFI, managed by Norad (Pb. 1303 Vika, NO-0112 OSLO, Norway) includes funds for the main grantee SEI and for sub-grantee Global Canopy (3 Frewin Chambers, Frewin Court, Oxford, OX1 3HZ, UK), Université Catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1348 Belgium), Auriga (Bukit Cimanggu City, Blok HH-17 No.16, Indonesia), as well as the significant sub-contractor Neural Alpha (Lambeth, London, SE11 5DP, UK). Please read the full Norad donor agreement for details.