Traded commodities

Global trade in commodities represents an important link between consuming countries and the ecosystems of producer countries. All aspects of production, including agricultural, forestry, fisheries, mining and manufacturing, have the potential to impact on the natural resources of producing countries.

Key sustainability issues associated with individual commodity production may include:

The links between production of individual commodities and impacts arising through one or more of these factors can be complex. For manufactured commodities (motor vehicles, clothing, white goods etc) the links may be very convoluted. For other commodities, derived more directly from forestry, fishery, agricultural and extractive industries, the links between production and sustainable development are more explicit, easier to quantify and more amenable to direct policy responses.

JNCC and other UK government work has identified a suite of imported commodities that are believed to be particularly significant in terms of global ecosystem impacts. This work is being undertaken as part of the UK’s research into Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP).Whilst these commodities represent only a portion of the total traded globally, focussing on these ‘sustainable development indicator commodities’ offers one means to clarify the nature of the relationship between the UK economy and supplying countries. It also provides the opportunity to find ways and means to link UK SD global policy objectives to the needs of individual trade partners.

Using UN and other statistical sources a web tool has been developed to quantify flow of some of these commodities between producing and consuming countries. Use of these statistics, for commodities such as palm oil, soya, ethanol and timber, allows global flows to be mapped and emerging trends to be identified.

JNCC work complements, and gives additional access to, results of extensive Defra analysis of the biodiversity and wider environmental impacts associated with production of these commodities.

Recent work by DFID, on behalf of the Inter-Ministerial Group on Biodiversity, has investigated the potential sustainable development impact of a variety of business and commodity sectors with an emphasis on biodiversity impacts. The DFID screening process identified six sectors of importance in terms of international impacts, namely:

Copies of the individual reports on energy, food supply, forestry and mining are available on the JNCC project website.

Summary of sector impacts on JNCC project website

DEFRA research into Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP).