Achieving Positive Change for Children’s Lives in Supply Chains: From Compliance to Impact

Achieving Positive Change for Children’s Lives in Supply Chains: From Compliance to Impact

Welcome To ActionLab Three. Our focus topic today: Due diligence in relation to impact on children’s lives in supply chains. Let’s break down our talking points.

The issue

Children in communities impacted by supply chains can lack education and adequate healthcare, and the working conditions of parents affects their children’s quality of life.

The benchmark findings

Global Child Forum’s latest benchmark contains results from 507 companies in Food, Beverage and Personal Care, and Technology and Telecommunications.

• A mere 8 of the companies report on consulting children or their representatives in stakeholder engagement processes
• 84% report on having a policy against child labour
• But only 25% report on having a prevention or remediation programme

What do you make of these numbers?

The call to action

Businesses today are not taking sufficient action to positively impact children in supply chains.

The buyer-supplier relationship is an important factor and businesses must act responsibly – especially with increased attention on due diligence from legislation such as the CSDDD (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive).

Engaging with stakeholders in the supply chain will be increasingly important to understand and address impact on children’s lives.

We call upon companies to act. Businesses must engage children as stakeholders – it’s time to listen up. Let’s get started!