This deep dive explores Thai Union’s Corporate Social Responsibility profile. As a leading seafood company in Thailand, Thai Union works within an industry which is still defined by a multitude of family owned businesses. The study looks at how the company attempts to limit child labour and increase access to education, as well as looking at its code of conduct, collaboration with Non-Governmental Organisations and future projects.
This benchmark study investigates 353 publicly listed companies in the region. Without measuring actual performance or compliance, the study aims to highlight if and how these companies address and report on children’s rights. The 353 companies were selected from industry sectors with exposure to children’s rights issues: Food & Beverage, Consumer goods, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Travel & Tourism, Basic materials, Industrial goods, Oil & Gas, and Healthcare.
Centrais Elétricas de Santa Catarina – CELESC, provides large areas of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina with electricity. As a partially state-owned service provider, the company has strong ties to the local communities that they serve, and has identified a number of ways to make a direct contribution to children’s rights. This Deep Dive is part of our series that looks at how companies find solutions and harness opportunities that create meaningful change. (Image/photo credit: CELESC)
“As a big company with operations in a large geographical area, we have the opportunity to reach many people and make a difference in society.” Regina Schlickmann Luciano* * *
Socio-Environmental Responsibility Advisor, CELESC
This deep dive explores Sime Darby’s Corporate Social Responsibility profile in relation to children’s rights. Operating in 26 countries and with 130, 000 employees, Sime Darby is one of the largest Malaysian based conglomerates. Sime Darby’s child protection policy, collaboration with Non-Governmental Organisations, understanding of key material risks and governance structure are all explored.
In the recent report The Corporate Sector and Children’s Rights in the Nordic Region, Global Child Forum and the Boston Consulting Group published the results from a benchmarking of how the 299 largest1 listed Nordic companies address children’s rights in their public reporting. To compare the findings from the screening of publicly listed companies, we assessed 30 non-listed Nordic companies; the 15 largest privately owned and the 15 largest state-owned. A summary of those results are presented below2.
Of a total possible score of 9, the privately owned companies scored on average 2.1 points, while state-owned companies scored 3.7 on average. In contrast, the 15 largest listed companies scored 5.1 on average.
One explanation for the difference could be due to the region’s stringent regulations on sustainability, reporting, and board accountability that affect primarily listed and state-owned companies. Due to the small sample size, not all industries are fully represented; approximately half of the private companies are in the Consumer Goods industry, with the remainder spread across Oil, Gas and Utilities, Food and Beverage and Industrials. The state-owned companies assessed are in all of the industries except ICT.
RESULTS PER INDICATOR (%)
When looking at the results for each of the indicators, it is notable that:
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