Stockholm Environment Institute.
Many of us enjoy eating a big burrito stuffed with beef or tofu, but how often do we consider the journey that the food in our meals has taken? Where was it grown? Who exported it? What were the environmental impacts of its production? These questions can be answered by Trase, a platform that maps the global supply chains driving deforestation. Developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute and Global Canopy Programme, Trase aims to help companies, financial institutions and governments understand their social and environmental impacts.
At the heart of Trase is a beautiful, interactive sankey diagram that visualises the journey beef and soy takes before arriving on your plate. The datasets that feed this visualisation are immense and we had to resist the urge to cram in as many features as possible. Instead, we carefully selected features that would allow people to explore the complex relationships between the data points without being overwhelmed. Pushing technology to the limits, the sankey diagram is the perfect way to fully appreciate the global demand for agricultural commodities.