Tracing Transboundary Flows of Trade-Embodied Emissions of, and Exposures to, Commercial Organic Chemicals Along Global Supply Chains

• Applicant: Dr. Judith Glienke
• Subject Area: Analytical Chemistry ; Organic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation ; Physical Chemistry of Molecules, Liquids and Interfaces, Biophysical Chemistry
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 527340468

Due to globalization, chemical production, product manufacturing, product use and product disposal may all occur in different countries or even on different continents. Accordingly, emissions of a chemical may occur in different places during different stages of its lifecycle. It is imperative that we assure that chemical exposure does not cause detrimental effects to human and environmental health. Ethically, this global division of labor leads to an Ecologically Unequal Exchange (EUE), as the emissions of a chemical often no longer occur in the country in which the benefit of the chemical’s use is enjoyed, leading to a transfer in emissions and therefore exposure to countries mainly focused on manufacturing and waste handling. Clearly, the global trade in chemicals, products, waste, food, and feed greatly complicates the understanding, quantification, and prediction of human exposure to commercial chemicals. However, this complexity needs to be addressed to truly establish production-receptor relationships in a globally connected economy. This Postdoctoral Research Fellowship will allow me to quantify the unequal exchange embedded in the international trade of chemicals and of the products, wastes and foods containing such chemicals and the resulting transfer of human exposure to hazardous chemicals. Previous research has sought to quantify EUE “by tracing and comparing flows of trade-embodied wealth and pollution along global supply chains”. The pollution in these analyses is mostly focused on greenhouse gas emissions or air pollution and the associated public health impact. In this research project, I propose to conduct a similar effort regarding other commercial organic compounds (e.g., pesticides), which to the best of my knowledge, has not been attempted previously. Using a suite of mechanistic models, this project will reveal, document, and quantify the unequal exchange of some of these selected chemicals and the resulting human exposure for the first time. To achieve this goal, the global movement of the contaminant chemicals must be quantified by collecting relevant data. For the transboundary transport, I will rely on global scale environmental fate and transport models. It is then possible to quantify the emissions in a country that either have been avoided or have been gained because of trade transactions by using dynamic flow modelling. To further estimate the human exposure implications, the average exposure of the population of a few selected countries will be quantified and compared. If data availability allows it, I will also conduct the exposure analyses as a function of time and for different birth cohorts and genders to gain knowledge about additional factors like stages of a chemical's life cycle, international trade volumes, dietary habits, etc. Based on these results, I seek means to weigh the emissions and resulting human exposure within a region against the benefits for the population through product use.

• DFG Programme: WBP Fellowship
• International Connection: Canada
• Host: Professor Dr. Frank Wania