The BBC’s business and economics unit has embarked on a new multimedia editorial project aimed at improving the storytelling of economic news.

The Box initiative is an attempt to ‘come up with a way of telling the real story of what’s happening in the global economy in a tangible, challenging and ambitious way’ across multiple BBC platforms, Jeremy Hillman, editor of the business and economics unit, writes on the BBC Editors Blog.

The box of the title refers to a BBC-branded shipping container equipped with a GPS transmitter, which will have its international journey tracked, updated and mapped on its own webpage.

“The journey this container follows over the next few months will be a real one, and whilst we will control some aspects of the process for logistical reasons, the story it tells will be a truly representative one, painting a picture of what globalisation really means,” writes Hillman.

The container began its journey in Southampton yesterday.

Hillman adds: “Whilst we have paid a little for the branding of the box and some technical costs, the fact this is a working container means it will be earning its own keep!”