Earlier this summer, Scottish Fair Trade was invited to take part in an expert panel discussion convened by twentyfifty, working with Scotland’s International Development Alliance (SIDA), to help one of the “Big Four” major banking group in the UK think through one of the hardest questions in responsible business:
How do the producers, farmers and workers at the very end of a financing chain actually raise a concern when something goes wrong?
We said yes immediately. This is exactly the kind of work Scottish Fair Trade exists to do – bringing the voices of producers and workers themselves into rooms where big institutional decisions are made, ones that shape their very lives.
Our own Jeannie Morgan, Scottish Fair Trade (SFT) Board Trustee, researcher and lecturer in business and human rights and expert in ethical supply chains, joined human rights defenders and civil society experts in the UK and the Global South for a candid, Chatham House Rule discussion.
The session explored what a genuinely accessible, trustworthy human rights grievance mechanism looks like from the impacted community and worker’s side — not only the institution’s — drawing on decades of collective field experience across Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Southern Africa.
It is a genuinely encouraging sign when one of the top UK banks chooses to sit down with civil society, ask hard questions, and listen before it builds. Fair Trade has always insisted that the people producing our goods deserve a seat at the table, not just a place at the end of a supply chain.
Too often, mechanisms designed to help affected communities are designed for institutional compliance rather than with the farmers and workers they are meant to serve. Their willingness to convene this conversation, and to treat critical friends as partners rather than adversaries, is a truly inspiring step that the other major UK financial institutions should take note of.
This work sits at the heart of a fast-moving legislative landscape. A new mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence bill was introduced in the House of Lords in June 2026, explicitly requiring companies to establish grievance mechanisms in line with UN Guiding Principle 31.
The Scottish Government continues to strengthen its own human rights due diligence guidance for public investment. Businesses of every size, and every sector, are being asked to show, and not just say, how they identify harm in their supply chains and how the people growing, picking and making the goods we rely on, can be heard.
This is precisely where Scottish Fair Trade can help. We work every day at the intersection of fair trading relationships, supply chain accountability, and producer and worker voice, and we are actively building our capacity to support businesses navigating this new landscape: from horizon-scanning legislation to convening the right expert voices in the room.
A more sustainable, more equitable global economy will not be built by institutions alone, or by advocates alone. It is built when those with power sit down and genuinely listen to those without it: the farmers, the workers, the producers who are so often invisible in the decisions made about them. We are very proud to have been part of a conversation which is trying to change that, and ready for more.
Interested in working with us on human rights due diligence, worker and producer engagement, or grievance mechanism design? Get in touch with us, or learn more about how we support businesses here.
