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Join Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) HQ as a Data Scientist and help shape data-driven insights for sustainable supply chains

Ednah Carrick November 7, 2024

0 210 3 minutes read

Closing Date: 17 November 2024

Join Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) HQ as a Data Scientist and help shape data-driven insights for sustainable supply chains

Overview

Join SEI international non-profit research institute and help create a sustainable, prosperous future for all! Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) HQ is a dynamic, expanding workplace that employs nearly 150 people from across the world in an activity-based office in central Stockholm (Garnisonen), with an additional 250 employees in seven centres around the world.

Join Trase at SEI and help shape data-driven insights for sustainable supply chains, driving positive environmental impacts across global commodities.

What is Trase?

Trase is an independent non-profit partnership providing open-access data, analysis and guidance on supply chain impacts on forests, nature and people. Traise goals are to motivate ambition and urgency, remove information barriers and increase understanding to guide interventions and evaluate progress. Traise aims to enable leadership and practical action while strengthening accountability to deliver on sustainability commitments and drive positive impacts.

Founded in 2016 by SEI and Global Canopy, Trase has grown into a widely recognized, world-leading and independent source of open data and intelligence on supply chain sustainability. It represents a global partnership of research and civil society organizations. With its 2025-2030 strategy on the horizon, Trase is poised to achieve even greater impact through open data, targeted analysis and guidance.

Central to Trase’s offering is a set of open data products detailing supply chain connections and exposure to deforestation, emissions and other impacts of individual trading companies and import markets for commodity sectors linked to tropical deforestation. To maximize its impact, Trase is evolving its data products to meet user needs, including greater investment in geospatial intelligence and global trade analyses, complementing its deep-dive work in specific sectors.

Trase team comprises over 35 individuals, located in nine countries, united by enthusiasm, curiosity and a shared mission. Trase strive to create an inclusive, dynamic and fun environment where team members and partners are individually and collectively empowered.

The role

Trase is looking for a data scientist to help develop and maintain up-to-date data on supply chains and environmental impacts across Trase’s priority commodities (with a focus on soy, beef, palm oil, cocoa and wood pulp). You will play a key role in updating supply chain and impact data on these commodities, developing and maintaining reproducible workflows and quality assurance protocols, and innovating methods and data products to link impacts to production and trade. In addition, you will contribute to actionable insights from our data to drive impact with target audiences.

This role requires a strong candidate with experience working with both spatial and non-spatial data, and an eagerness to learn about sustainability issues and methods. The ability to collaborate with colleagues across the team is key to success in this role. The position is part of Trase’s product team, working alongside data engineers, back- and front-end web developers, a UX designer and other data scientists. You will be an active part of a global team of multinational, multidisciplinary and multilingual experts.

Key responsibilities:

applying existing methods to update commodity supply chains and spatial metrics on the environmental impacts of commodity production and supporting the preparation of documentation (approx. 50%)
developing new methods, reproducible workflows, and quality assurance protocols to improve the efficiency of Trase workflows in collaboration with colleagues (approx. 20%)
supporting the development of open-access data products, analysing Trase and third-party data to deliver key insights and summary statistics on the sustainability of commodity trade (approx. 20%)
thinking creatively about bringing new data, technical solutions and procedures to enhance Trase’s core data offering, facilitating access and analysis of this data (approx. 10%)

Who you are

You have a strong background in data science and a deep interest in sustainability, particularly in the agricultural, land-use or forestry sectors. You are motivated by making up-to-date data and knowledge accessible to diverse audiences, including the private sector, governments and civil society.

You are able and willing to work both independently and as part of a team in a highly flexible and dynamic organization. You are comfortable delivering impactful data products and analyses, while also dedicating time to basic maintenance, monitoring, documentation and processing tasks. Respect for colleagues and a commitment to fostering a supportive, fun, and collaborative working environment are values you hold strongly.

Essential qualifications:

master’s-level qualification or equivalent work experience in a field relevant to data science or analysis (e.g. data science, environmental sciences, economics)
experience in data pre-processing and analysis (spatial and non-spatial)
proficiency in one of the following programming languages: R, Python
experience using Google Earth Engine
experience working with Git (GitHub, GitLab or similar)

Desirable qualifications:

experience working on the sustainability of commodity supply chains and analysis of trade data, especially in soy, beef, palm oil, wood pulp or coffee sectors
experience in SQL and working with databases and/or similar data catalogs
experience working in multidisciplinary teams
experience with machine learning/deep learning algorithms and applications (e.g. ML/AI)
proficiency in one or more of Trase’s target languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia, French, Mandarin Chinese