Workbook
September 2020
Although considerable efforts have been undertaken by many businesses to respect children’s rights, obstacles remain. Numerous companies, for example, are uncertain as to how to begin addressing the issue of children’s rights. Global Child Forum has therefore developed this workbook for businesses to use at the outset of their children’s rights journey as well as for those looking to advance work already underway.
The workbook has been written in alignment with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the Children’s Rights and Business Principles (CRBPs). Other guidance and best practice are referenced and made available as needed to help the reader gain clarity on how to implement children’s rights in the corporate agenda.
We hope that this guide will not only inform and inspire, but also equip business leaders and sustainability professionals with tools to take action – action to ensurethat children’s rights are respected and supported by businesses across the world.
What is good for children, is good for business.
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“Business has a huge impact on children’s lives. However it can be difficult to know where to start, so we pledged to create a guide for how to incorporate children’s voices into our group of businesses. We collaborated with Global Child Forum and Boston Consulting Group to develop this Workbook on how to implement a children’s rights perspective. It has provided us with a roadmap that we hope will enable many other companies to start working with children’s rights.” / Jenny Lindén Urnes, Lindéngruppen
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Respecting children’s rights is an inherent part of good business practice and risk management and should, therefore, have implications for a company’s financial results. Few investors would contest the sound logic of this statement. However, there is still little empirical evidence to directly connect a company’s profitability to how well it manages children’s rights. To help fill this knowledge gap, Global Child Forum, in cooperation with Boston Consulting Group, has conducted an analysis of the relationship between a company’s profitability and its score in the 2021 Children’s Rights Global Benchmark. The research looked at both EBITDA margin and Total Shareholder Return (TSR) for all 853 companies surveyed. Download the study to learn more about the results.
Vodafone’s purpose is to “connect for a better future” enabling an inclusive and sustainable digital society. Its know-how and scale – with over 315 million mobile customers in Europe and across Africa – gives it a unique opportunity to drive positive change for society. Vodafone’s networks connect family, friends, businesses and governments and play a vital role in keeping economies running, including critical sectors like education and healthcare. With such scale, Vodafone recognises not only the positive impacts on people’s rights from digital technology, but also the potential that its operations could impact human rights – including children’s rights, even though Vodafone’s services are not marketed to them. Based on this insight, the company has been working actively to strengthen children’s rights across their business in the several ways, elaborated in this case study:
As a global electronics company with more than 260 000 employees in 74 countries, one of the core values of Samsung is “People First”. Based on the firm belief that a company is only as good as its employees, and with an ambition to continue to be an attractive employer, the company has prioritised implementing a range of family-friendly policies promoting employee wellbeing and work-life balance. The case study was published together with the global benchmark; The State of Children’s Rights and Business 2021. Click here to get to the full report. Download the case study to learn more.
This playbook provides starting points for defining the different types of stereotyping that can have a harmful impact on a child’s well-being and development, with tools for business to create guidelines and strategies for ensuring diversity and inclusion in their creative content and products for children.
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Publisher
UNICEF
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Publisher
UNICEF
No. 4 in a series of company reflections for the Global Child Forum on the ways in which companies address children’s rights and child-related issues. The study showcases Wilmar’s path towards establishing more sustainable business practices and developing a better understanding of the need to integrate a children’s rights perspective across its operations and suppliers. Click here to read the State of Children’s Rights in Southeast Asia Benchmark 2020.
