Global Child Forum — a Stockholm-based
nonprofit foundation founded by the Swedish Royal Family to promote
children’s rights — today announced the results of its 2019 global benchmark
study,
showing that companies worldwide are making incremental positive changes to
protect children’s rights, but need to significantly accelerate the pace, as
risks continue to outpace progress.
The State of Children’s Rights and Business: From Promise to Practice,
conducted in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group, analyzed just under
700 of the world’s largest companies, and how they are safeguarding children’s
rights as part of their business value chain. It marks Global Child Forum’s
second global benchmark since 2014.
“Our report demonstrates that companies are starting to understand the
specificity of children’s rights issues within a corporate context and want to
make a positive difference,” said Cajsa Wiking, Secretary General at Global
Child Forum. “However, we also found that many companies need to go beyond
having formal policies in place, and actually put them in practice through
implementation and integration in company operations and supply chains.”
Methodology
The benchmark tracks 692 of the world’s largest companies by revenue across nine
industries and six geographic regions. Companies are given an overall weighted
scored based on their performance on three issue categories, on a scale of 0-10:
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Workplace: Policies and reporting around working conditions
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Marketplace: Policies and programs related to protecting children as
consumers
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Community & Environment: Policies and reporting around company impact on
the community and environment, and how this affects children as a distinct
stakeholder group
Additional details on the methodology are included in the full benchmark
report.
Timed with the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child, the report
represents the most extensive assessment of how the corporate sector is doing on
integrating children’s rights into their operations, and their relations with
communities. Click here for a full list of company scores.
Key findings from the study include:
-
Overall improvement across industries and regions compared to 2014:
Companies have improved their overall scores pertaining to reporting on
child rights indicators, with the largest improvements observed within
Oil, Gas & Utilities and Industrials. Telecommunications &
Technology companies have the highest overall average performance score,
followed by Industrials and Basic Materials.
-
North American companies trail behind: North American companies lag
behind their counterparts in Europe, Latin America and the
Caribbean. Compared to European companies, they are behind in board
accountability, materiality assessment and supplier assessment;
and particularly, in reporting on incidents/risk of child labor. Though,
a few North American companies do stand out as ‘Leaders’ — including
Apple (8.2), AT&T (8.1),
Coca-Cola (8.7), Intel
(8.7), Kimberly-Clark (8.2), Nike (8.5) and Philip Morris
International (8.6), which is actively working to eliminate child labor
from its tobacco supply
chain.
-
Failing children as a distinct consumer group: Among the three issue
pillars analyzed for the benchmark, companies across the board scored the
lowest on indicators related to protecting children as consumers through
responsible
marketing
and product
safety.
-
Initiatives not part of a broader strategy: Many companies have yet to
view children’s rights as a strategic priority, as opposed to philanthropy —
which results in ad-hoc initiatives focusing on short-term needs (such as
one-off charity projects) and not a longer-term vision.
-
Marked gap between promise and practice: While many companies have
policies in place to safeguard children’s rights, most are behind in
demonstrating their
implementation.
Among the companies that explicitly prohibit child labor, less than half (43
percent) report any kind of supplier assessment and only 33 percent maintain
board oversight over children’s issues.
-
Getting the board on board: More corporate boards see children’s rights
as a distinct issue — with 30 percent of companies addressing it at the
board level, compared to 13 percent in 2014. However, the report shows that
boards need to engage more actively and demonstrate a clearer commitment at
the highest level in the company.
“The risks to children in a business context go well beyond child labor, as
companies affect children through their products and services, marketing
methods, relationships with local and national governments, and investments in
local communities,” said Johan Öberg, Managing Director and Senior Partner
at Boston Consulting Group. “The 2019 benchmark highlights clear opportunities
for the business community to make a more significant difference by improving
reporting, accountability and a better understanding of how children are
impacted by business practices.”
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Nov 14, 2019 7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET