Research is our raw material
TerriFlux was born from public research, a spin-off from Inria, and still runs on it: nine R&D projects since 2022 with ADEME, INRAE, CNRS and Bpifrance feed directly into our tools and studies.
R&D projects
Every project pushes the same goal: making material and energy flow analysis rigorous, reproducible and accessible. A concrete example: in 2023, starting from about 1,200 data points collected "from field to plate" across ten French agri-food chains, our engines derived 19,000 computed flows, consistent and documented.
Socle
since 2024 · ADEME
A shared territorial-modelling platform: one common framework to describe, reconcile and compare material and energy flows across territories. It is the technical foundation our studies and partner projects build on, providing reusable supply-chain schemas, sourced data and replayable computations.
BACCFIRE
2022-2025 · coord. ONF (French Forest Office)
Tracking carbon from forests to wood products and their end of life, with generic flow schemas applicable to any forest-wood chain. Coordinated by the ONF, the project closed in late 2025 with a 91-page final report, and with the coupling of our diagrams with CAT, the forest carbon simulator.
RefFlux
2022-2023 · with 7 agricultural technical institutes
A common reference for flow diagrams of French agri-food supply chains, from field to plate, built with seven technical institutes within the FILARMONI network. This is the "1,200 data points → 19,000 flows" project, and it led to several scientific publications in 2024-2025.
WooDyn
since 2025 · coord. Université Gustave Eiffel
Extending MFA into time: modelling flows AND stocks of the urban wood chain dynamically, coupled with a "transition" LCA that reasons in systems rather than product by product. A PhD co-supervised with UGE and Inria carries the theoretical groundwork; WooDyn is where our CAT, Brightway and flodym couplings happen.
MetabolHeat
since 2024 · UMR 5600 EVS lab
Crossing the thermal and material metabolism of territories: research subcontracting for the Environnement Ville Société lab (CNRS UMR 5600), which applies our reconciliation methods to urban energy and heat flows.
Scalable
2022-2024 · coord. INRAE LESSEM
From bespoke studies to reproducible analysis: a reference set of supply-chain coefficients that makes a flow analysis possible for any French territory without starting from scratch. Coordinated by INRAE (LESSEM), continuing the AF Filières work.
Real-Time
2022-2023 · French Tech Émergence grant
Making reconciliation interactive: real-time recomputation and fine multi-scale analysis, from national down to local. Funded by a Bpifrance French Tech Émergence grant, this algorithmic core is what powers OpenSankey+ and MFASankey today.
MFASankey
since 2022 · open source
Our self-funded product R&D: the open-source OpenSankey editor, the OpenSankey+ SaaS suite and the MFAProblem reconciliation engine. This is where research results land, every published method ending up as a usable feature.
Interoperable with reference scientific tools
OpenSankey describes the structure: the map of a supply chain's flows. Specialised computation engines plug into it, each for its own question.
CAT, Carbon Accounting Tool
The forest carbon simulator developed by Mathieu Fortin. Coupled with our supply-chain schemas since BACCFIRE: carbon can be tracked from the forest to wood products, right on the diagram.
Brightway
The reference open-source framework for life-cycle assessment. Coupling MFA with "transition" LCA (reasoning in systems rather than product by product) is at the heart of the WooDyn project.
flodym
The open-source dynamic MFA library (heir to ODYM): stocks, lifetimes and time trajectories, plugged into our supply-chain schemas to go from snapshot to movie.
The logic is always the same: every process in our diagrams is a reusable building block. The structure is ours, the engines are open.
Scientific publications
Our methods are published and verifiable: all references are open access on HAL.
- Courtonne J.-Y., Alapetite J., Longaretti P.-Y., Dupré D., Prados E. (2015). Downscaling material flow analysis: The case of the cereal supply chain in France. Ecological Economics. [HAL]
- Courtonne J.-Y., Longaretti P.-Y., Alapetite J., Dupré D. (2016). Environmental Pressures Embodied in the French Cereals Supply Chain. Journal of Industrial Ecology. [HAL]
- Alapetite J., Courtonne J.-Y. et al. (2023). Introducing OpenSankey. [HAL]
- Levert F., Alapetite J. et al. (2024). Flow diagrams of French agricultural supply chains from field to plate: towards a common reference (in French). [HAL]
- Galibert A., Courtonne J.-Y., Alapetite J., Pannier A. et al. (2024). Socio-metabolic analysis of supply chains and their vulnerabilities (in French). [HAL]
- Diot V., Alapetite J. (2025). Quantitative assessment of the consumption of pork products in France in 2021. [HAL]
Partners & funders
We work daily with public research institutes and national agencies.
Not forgetting Bpifrance (French Tech Émergence grant) and the FILARMONI network. Have a research project or a study in mind? Get in touch.
The method, in video
Why material flow analysis and Sankey diagrams help steer sustainable supply chains: explained on the wood value chain.