SEI-PCS: Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems

This briefing describes SEI-PCS, a modeling approach developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) to provide fine-scale subnational data on the origins of traded commodities and their associated socio-environmental impacts. The tool is designed to overcome the limitations of traditional footprinting methods, which typically rely on country-level macroeconomic figures, by recreating supply chains to link consumption to specific production sites.

• SEI-PCS is a modeling approach that enables fine-scale subnational assessments of commodity origins and their embedded socio-environmental impacts, such as biodiversity loss, local pollution, or carbon emissions. It achieves this by combining international and domestic trade flows, customs data, and detailed subnational production data to attribute impacts to specific actors and commodity flows.
• The SEI-PCS model improves upon traditional footprinting by linking consumption to local supply chain actors and socio-environmental dynamics at a scale relevant to the impacts. It allows for the identification of supplier regions and individuals, as well as the monitoring of temporal dynamics, such as how changes in sourcing patterns affect habitat loss in specific regions.
• SEI-PCS serves as the foundation for Trase (Transparency for Sustainable Economies), an initiative launched in 2016. Trase uses the model to provide transparency regarding supply chains of agricultural commodities linked to tropical deforestation in Indonesia and Latin America, specifically focusing on Brazilian soy.
• The modeling approach is used for policy-relevant analyses, including assessing the progress of zero-deforestation commitments and identifying "leakage" effects. For example, it has been used to show how environmental policies intended to protect the Amazon rainforest resulted in increased soy deforestation in neighboring non-Amazonian areas.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2019). SEI-PCS: Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sei-2019-p2cs-summary-sei-pcs.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. SEI-PCS: Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems. 2019. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sei-2019-p2cs-summary-sei-pcs.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=SEI-PCS: Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems |date=March 2019 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sei-2019-p2cs-summary-sei-pcs.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2019seipcs, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{SEI-PCS: Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2019}, month = mar, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sei-2019-p2cs-summary-sei-pcs.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }