Open Traceability Definition

Open Traceability is the externally inspectable connection between an environmental claim and the specific evidence, methods, assumptions, computations, review processes, and publications from which that claim was derived. It enables consistent assessment across claim types by breaking the knowledge-creation process into traceability dimensions covering input evidence, methods and software, execution, review, publication, provenance, integrity, and independence. An environmental claim is any statement about environmental state, impact, change, risk, performance, attribution, history or forecast. This enables the origin of the informational flow to be traced.

This enables consistent assessment across claim types by breaking the knowledge-creation process into traceability dimensions:

1. Open Input Data and Measurement Evidence: whether the relevant inputs are identifiable, documented, attributable, reusable, verifiable, and versioned; whether their measurement methods, uncertainty, quality controls, licensing, and transformations are clear; and whether the origin and quality of the data can be externally verified. Strong input-data traceability exists where external actors can inspect where the data came from, how it was produced or collected, how it was processed, and under what conditions it may be reused.
2. Open Source Models, Methods, and Software: whether the analytical logic can be inspected through code, models, methods, dependencies, documentation, and licensing. Ideally, open source models and software should be released in version-controlled repositories and come with a recognized open source licence, such as one approved by the Open Source Initiative. This should ideally also include the dependencies, documentation, and configuration needed to understand and run the software or model.
3. Open Execution and Reproducibility: whether workflows, scripts, parameters, outputs, and computational environments make the path from inputs to outputs inspectable. Strong execution traceability exists where an external actor can understand, and ideally repeat, the computational process that produced the result. The highest standard is not merely that code exists, but that the specific run connecting the input data to the reported output can be inspected and, where feasible, re-executed using standardized and accessible computational infrastructure.
4. Open Community and Review: whether critique, issue tracking, review, correction, and responses to challenge are visible enough to show how claims were tested, questioned, corrected, or improved. Strong review traceability exists where external users can inspect not only the final claim, but also the record of scrutiny around it. This may include peer review, public comments, issue trackers, correction notices, methodological discussions, replication attempts, governance records, or community forums. Ideally, the evidence-producing process includes open channels where users, contributors, reviewers, and affected communities can raise questions, report errors, and discuss interpretations.
5. Open Publications and Communication: whether resulting reports, papers, dashboards, policy outputs, or explanatory materials are accessible and documented clearly enough to support scrutiny. Strong publication traceability exists where public outputs clearly state the claim, describe the methods and evidence base, cite the specific supporting artifacts, and preserve enough context for external inspection. Ideally, publications are openly accessible, released under standardized open licences such as Creative Commons, and subject to appropriate review. For dashboards and other dynamic outputs, this also includes clear documentation of update cycles, data sources, indicator definitions, and version history.
6. Open Linkage and Independence: whether the chain of evidence from the knowledge-creation process across open input data and measurement evidence (1), models, methods, or software (2), execution (3), community and review (4), and publication (5) is connected in an explicit, specific, versioned, and externally verifiable way. This includes links between claims and the exact datasets, code versions, model configurations, workflow runs, review records, publications, and supporting documents on which they depend. This dimension is decisive because openness without linkage does not produce traceability.

Open Traceability does not by itself prove that an environmental claim is correct, unbiased, or scientifically valid. Rather, it makes the basis of the claim inspectable, so that its evidence, assumptions, methods, limitations, uncertainty, and possible errors can be examined by others. A claim can be highly traceable and still be wrong; Open Traceability makes such problems easier to detect, evaluate, and correct. The highest level of Open Traceability is demonstrated where a claim is supported not only by one open and inspectable evidence chain, but by multiple independent publications or analyses that rely on different, independently traceable evidence chains. One or similars claim can be traced via a multitued of different chains of evidence.