Food Network for Ethical Trade

Happy New Year everyone 😀 Today we welcomed the Food Network for Ethical Trade members to our first fortnightly call of 2025. We were joined by some excellent presenters: Neill Wilkins IHRB, Peter Hall Johnson & Johnson, Jess Verdon Mars, AIM-Progress, Impactt, IOM - UN Migration, Manal Saleh as well as over 70 engaged members. We are excited to get started ... lots of activities, new members joining and in person events coming up. If this sounds interesting. Please get in touch at admin@foodnetworkforethicaltrade.com #bizhumanrights #responsiblebusiness #DueDiligence #capacitybuilding #supplychains #ResponsibleRecruitment #logistics #migration #networking #SustainableRawMaterials #chicken #coconut #security #gender

Here at Food Network for Ethical Trade we are winding down for the festive break, reflecting on a productive year and finalising exciting plans for the year ahead. As a membership organisation we are hugely grateful to our members for making the magic happen. We saw in this years membership survey, businesses stepping up the pace to adopt responsible business practices, seeing the value in aligning approaches and accelerating collaborative action. Wishing everyone an enjoyable festive break and a happy healthy 2025. Special thanks to: our committed board Pins Brown, Aisha Aswani, Courtenay Forbes, Sam Ludlow Taylor, Julia Black, Mel Miles, Andy York, Anna Pike, Fiona Wheatley, Chris Sutton; our amazing team; Suzanne Natelson, Linda Beresford, Louise Nicholls, Christine Goodacre, Lynsey Warren, Sue Butler and all our brilliant working group leads; Iwona Janik, PhD, Hannah Radvan, Ed Brent, Shannon Hilton, David Alder, Naomi Kirkwood, Rachel Munns, Claire Donovan, Kealey Burbidge, Louise McCafferty and Peter Fletcher And special thanks to our partners ALP (Association of Labour Providers) NGO StrongerTogether, Ethical Trading Initiative, AIM-Progress, Sedex, BRC #humanrights #ethicaltrade #ResponsibleBusinessConduct #bizhumanrights #climateaction #sustainablesupplychains #duediligence #HRDD #livingwage #responsiblerecruitment #collaboration #festivebreak

This years #HumanRightsDay is focussing on how respecting human rights is a key pathway to systemic solutions and can play a critical role as a preventative, protective and transformative force for good. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said, “Human rights are the foundation for peaceful, just, and inclusive societies.” In a world of growing complexity, uncertainty - whether due to breakdown in multilateralism, the spread of violent conflict, industry-changing legislation, or climate action inertia, NOW is the time for business and other actors to redouble efforts to implement #HumanRights #DueDiligence and advance collective action. The Food Network for Ethical Trade exists to help member companies to align approaches ( #reduceduplication), to accelerate #responsiblebusinesspractices and #collaborate with like minded organisations to accelerate #impact. Each International Human Rights Day, Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) releases Top 10 Business & Human Rights Issues - an annual forecast of priority challenges and opportunities to advance responsible business practices in the year ahead. The latest for 2025 is a cracker... ▶️ https://lnkd.in/eWyRRPQz #bizhumanrights #humanrights #ethicaltrade #HumanRightsDay #inclusion #livingwage #forcedlabor #landrights #waterrights #indigenouspeoples #Childlabour #CorporateSocialResponsibility #ClimateAction #migrantrights #gender

Today we hosted a practical webinar on mapping complex supply chains to better understand raw material risk and facilitated a discussion for members to share how they are evolving their approaches As this weeks BBC Panorama programme highlighted whilst achieving full supply chain transparency is challenging, it is no longer optional. With growing scrutiny from consumers and regulators, businesses need to take proactive steps to ensure their sourcing practices align with ethical and human rights standards. Grappling with this level of complexity is hard for businesses to do on their own and its why it makes sense to work collaboratively and align approaches. If this sounds interesting get in touch perhaps Food Network for Ethical Trade membership is just what your company needs to make traction. ▶️ BBC Article: https://lnkd.in/eiZa2uXj ▶️ Access to programme: https://lnkd.in/g2xepHVi #supplychainmapping #traceability #responsiblesourcing #foodfraud #bizhumanrights #forcedlabour #modernslavery #HumanRights #SupplyChainTransparency #CorporateAccountability #CSDDD #CorporateTransparency #SupplyChainIntegrity #ForcedLabour #HumanRightsDueDiligence #CSDDD #SupplyChainEthics #CorporateResponsibility

Starting to feel festive 🎄 here. In yesterdays last fortnightly member call of the year, we were delighted to hear from Co-op on their Treating Fairly awards 2024 winners (who are also Food Network for Ethical Trade members 😀) BerryWorld and G's Group and World Benchmarking Alliance insights on CHRB - Corporate Human Rights Benchmark companies progress or lack of! Additionally we discussed some specific member support requests re accomodation and tricky suppliers to engage and members volunteered resources and advice to help them make traction. Thanks to all our fantastic presenters and Suzanne Natelson for facilitating such an informative call #bizhumanrights #capacitybuilding #ethicaltrade #responsiblerecruitment #gender #accomodation #SupplierEngagement

Today Ethical Trading Initiative and Food Network for Ethical Trade held a joint webinar to explore human rights risks and challenges in the security sector. Insights from Chris Galvin International Code of Conduct Association (ICoCA) on how poor working conditions such as #lowwages #longworkinghours #healthandsafety for security personnel can have a negative influence on behaviour and standards. ICoCA's shared useful resources and details on their certification programme.   Patricia Jacopucci provided insights on Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights and Multistakeholder Initiatives on offer for businesses and governments to collaborate to address human rights concerns in public and private security. ETI & FNET members shared practical case studies on their approaches to understanding security risks at farm and factory levels and by how taking new approaches such as security staff wearing "less police-like uniforms" and taking a "deter, detect, delay" observational approach instead of engagement can have a positive impact on health and safety and reducing fear for communities around sites.  Looking forward to FNET's follow-up session in January.  ▶️ International Code of Conduct Association (ICoCA) resources: https://lnkd.in/eXpnhjVA ▶️ Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights https://lnkd.in/gTe4U-Q

We thoroughly enjoyed networking and learning at UN Business and Human Rights Forum this week. Looking forward to building on some of the collaborative ideas discussed in coming weeks. Some links to useful reports here ⬇️ #bizhumanrights #ethicaltrade #BHRForum #UNForumBHR

Many congratulations to our members in improving their performance in CCLA Investment Management 2024 Modern Slavery Benchmark and ability to spot signs and act on #modernslavery risks.

We're looking forward to attending the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva next week. We will be looking forward to picking up new ideas on advancing #BizHumanRights issues to bring back and share with members as well as sharing more of what Food Network for Ethical Trade is up to Will you be in town? We'd love to meet you. Please get in touch with Louise Nicholls technicallead@foodnetworkforethicaltrade.com if you'd like to connect. #UNForumBHR #ResponsibleBusiness #Geneva

Food Network for Ethical Trade members launched 2 new tools to support a common approach to due diligence. ▶ Food Supply Chain Serious Incident Escalation and Management Protocol- This document outlines the recommended process for suppliers to report to their retailer customers potential cases of modern slavery such as forced labour, human trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of serious worker exploitation in their UK operations and supply chains (serious incidents) AND how retailers and brands will handle such cases received from suppliers in order to drive consistent application of good practice. ▶ Process for managing Collaborative Action Required (CAR) finding non compliances- In response to FNET member and stakeholder concerns about how to manage Collaborative Action Required (CAR) finding’s from Sedex SMETA 7 audits FNET has worked with retailer members to align on a common approach. Our approach is work in progress which we envisage developing over the next 6 months as we learn more about the types of CAR’s being raised and what good practice looks like to collaborate to remediate them. Any feedback on how either document can be improved is gratefully received. Please contact  technicallead@foodnetworkforethicaltrade.com as we plan to review after first 6 months use. Both tools are open source and available to download from FNET website https://lnkd.in/dxnTbNzu #HRDD #duediligence #CollaborativeAction #bizhumanrights #ethicaltrade