Trade, resources and supply chains
Trade and supply-chain risk concerns the concentration of production, processing and transit in few places and few firms, and the policy choices that can turn that concentration into leverage.
- Institution
- The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
- Service level
- R0: information and enquiries
The short answer.
Trade, resources and supply chains as a field of risk covers the networks through which goods, critical minerals and strategic inputs move, and the chokepoints and dependencies that make them fragile. In the Nexus Consortium it is studied as science at GCRI by Food Nexus as well as Trade and Strategic Resources; this gateway links those platforms and the methods they share.
The field, seen three ways.
Governance and dialogue
No platform yet in this field.
Financial understanding
No platform yet in this field.
Concentration, chokepoints and weaponised interdependence.
A supply chain is as resilient as its least substitutable node. For many critical minerals, refining is more concentrated than mining; for semiconductors, a few fabs and tool suppliers dominate. Maritime chokepoints carry a large share of seaborne trade. Measuring this requires firm-level and product-level network data that public statistics only partly provide.
- Herfindahl-type concentration indices by stage, not only by country of mining.
- Inventory and lead-time buffers as the real shock absorbers.
- Export controls and restrictions as policy shocks with their own contagion.
Rules, data and due diligence.
| Framework or body | What it governs or supplies |
|---|---|
| WTO agreements and trade monitoring | Rules on export restrictions and transparency of trade measures |
| UN Comtrade and national customs data | Product-level trade flows |
| OECD Due Diligence Guidance for responsible mineral supply chains | Risk-based due diligence for minerals from conflict-affected and high-risk areas |
| Basel Convention | Transboundary movement of hazardous waste, relevant to recycling chains |
Trade as a transmitter.
- Food: grain corridors and export restrictions.
- Energy: fuels and transition minerals.
- Industry: just-in-time manufacturing.
- Oceans: ports and chokepoints.
The science sits on Trade and Strategic Resources; methods start from network science.
The methods behind the field.
- Agricultural, soil and food science
- Ecology and biodiversity science
- Earth observation and remote sensing
- Spatial statistics and geostatistics
- Forecasting and time-series analysis
- Optimization and operations research
- Econometrics
- Hydrology and water science
- Biotechnology platforms
- Water and environmental engineering
- Network science and contagion
- Geospatial information systems
- Materials science and chemistry
- Urban and transport engineering
- Robotics and automation
- Process and industrial safety engineering
- Systems engineering
- Sensors, IoT and observation networks
- Energy generation, storage and grid technology
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Supply chain | The network of organizations, activities and flows that turns inputs into products and delivers them to users. |
| Strategic resource | An input whose loss would seriously harm an economy or security because it is essential and hard to replace. |
| Chokepoint | A narrow passage or node through which a large share of trade must pass. |
| Supplier concentration | Dependence on a small number of countries or firms for an input. |
Where this page's references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
Why does GCRI host field gateways?
Around GCRI.
Start with an enquiry.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.