Trase data is increasingly being used by civil society organisations to help evidence strategic litigation on gaps in corporate deforestation and human rights due diligence.
In 2023, ClientEarth used Trase data in a legal complaint against Cargill over a lack of adequate measures to deal with soy-driven deforestation and human rights violations in Brazil. Drawing on a variety of findings, including Trase’s subnational supply chain data for Brazilian soy, ClientEarth argued that the US-based company was not adequately monitoring the soy it trades and was in breach of its due diligence responsibilities under the OECD guidelines.
In 2024, Trase data helped to provide critical evidence to a joint legal submission by ClientEarth, Mighty Earth and Deutsche Umwelthilfe to Germany’s trade agency. The submission called for an investigation into three of the country’s biggest meat producers who are exposed to deforestation and human rights risks in Brazil through the soy in their supply chain. The investigation argued that the German meat companies were failing to carry out adequate due diligence, placing them in breach of Germany’s supply chain law.
Trase data has been immensely helpful for our legal work: From identifying deforestation risks in certain production areas to ascertaining the likelihood that companies here in Europe are connected to ecosystem destruction in the Amazon or the Brazilian Cerrado – Trase data has been indispensable to justify our argument that some companies are not doing enough to keep deforestation off our supermarket shelves and that they breach their legal obligations.
Kaja Blumtritt, Law and Policy Advisor, Value Chains, Trade & Investment, ClientEarth