NIES Global Trade of Materials
Since April 2016, the Center for Material Cycles and Waste Management Research of the National Institute for Environment Studies, Japan (NIES) has been promoting Research Project 1: Designing a sustainability strategy for global resource networks from a consumption-based perspective in the Sustainable Material Cycles Research Program. This project develops an global supply chain model for the quantitative analysis of resource consumption, environmental pressures, and social influence induced by Japanese consumption activities domestically and internationally. The model assesses sustainability on the supply chain with consideration of future changes in technologies, consumption, and trade structure based on scenarios. Through examination of supply chain improvements and their effects on sustainability, the project aims at contributing to a design of resource management policy considering global material flows crucial to the Japanese economy. Particularly devoting attention to metallic resources, we identify and analyze global material flows by focusing on the movement volume between nations by international trade. Apparent consumption and stock of resources are also estimated including their time series changes.
NIES Global Trade of Materials is a database in which the amounts of metallic resources moving among over 200 nations and regions in the world by international trade are digitized by trade goods. Although this is compiled for the research object shown above, they are also useful to ascertain the comprehensive conditions of metallic resources moving throughout the world, being included in highly processed products such as personal computers and cellular phones in addition to use merely as ores and materials. The data are made public as a free database. In addition, a visualization tool is provided to facilitate visual understanding of the status of resource flows and stocks. It is suggested that this tool might be useful in the support of drawing figures.
Users presenting results of analysis using this database in a research paper or conference should cite the database as the following:
National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan (2018), NIES Global Trade of Materials, Retrieved from http://gtm.nies.go.jp/.
Please note that NIES is not responsible for any damages accruing to use of these data and does not guarantee any validity of results of data analysis and interpretation.
gtm-database@nies.go.jp
16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8506 Japan