Collaborative forums and industry initiatives

Community and convening

The most stubborn human rights issues in global supply chains – such as forced labour, exploitative recruitment, poverty wages, and workers without a voice – can affect whole industries, sourcing regions, and economic systems.

Addressing them requires businesses to be willing to work together, share what they know, and move in the same direction.

Inherently Human’s founder, Louise Herring, has spent years building, leading, and running initiatives that do exactly that.

Food Network for Ethical Trade (FNET)

Louise founded FNET to create a trusted, pre-competitive space where food businesses could learn from each other, build on shared experience, and make genuine progress for workers.

Today, FNET is a collaborative network of over 80 food companies. Working together, members support each other to improve the livelihoods and working conditions of people affected by their operations and supply chains. Companies that compete in the market find common ground on what matters most – and use that common ground to drive positive change.

https://foodnetworkforethicaltrade.com

AIM-Progress

AIM-Progress is a global initiative of consumer goods manufacturers and suppliers, established to enable and promote responsible sourcing practices and sustainable production. Louise serves as its Executive Director.

The initiative works through focused groups on living wages and income, responsible recruitment and forced labour, grievance mechanisms, and impact measurement.

AIM-Progress facilitates collaboration between brands and suppliers, creates partnerships and networks to share ways of working, and builds capability to unify and optimise approaches to responsible sourcing.

https://aim-progress.com

Working with us on collective approaches

Whether you want to understand how collaborative forums work in practice, explore what a new industry-wide initiative might look like in your sector, or simply find out whether existing networks might be right for your organisation, we can help.

We bring the facilitation skills, the stakeholder relationships, and the long view needed to create collaborative movements that work.

Talk to us

Get in touch to discuss collective action in your sector.

We engaged Inherently Human to conduct an independent review of our Human Rights Prioritisation Tool – a time-bound piece of work that required both deep expertise and practical judgement. The quality of the feedback exceeded our expectations: the analysis was clear, detailed, and directly actionable, giving us a strong foundation for strengthening the tool. It is rare to receive expert input that is both technically rigorous and easy to work with. We would not hesitate to work with Inherently Human again.

Celine Gilart, Director of International Programmes, Bonsucro

Find out more

Ten years of FNET: reflections on a decade of ethical trade

14 May

In May 2026, Inherently Human’s Laura Falk and Louise Herring joined the Food Network for Ethical Trade to mark the organisation’s tenth anniversary.

Bonsucro: Human rights prioritisation tool review

Before rolling out their new human rights prioritisation tool to the sugarcane sector, Bonsucro sought an independent review from a trusted expert.

Facilitating conversations

We design and facilitate conversations that bring together the full range of people needed to address a specific human rights challenge.

Service

Convening

Understanding human rights in business

A clear, comprehensive introduction to human rights and labour rights – delivered in a digestible format that works for teams across your whole organisation – along with a practical next steps session.

course

Category: Foundations

Format: Online

Duration: 90 mins

Learn more & book