Sustainable Investing
The number and diversity of investors looking for sustainable opportunities are on the rise for several reasons:
- Decision makers are asking more of companies and are seeing more sustainable investment solutions
- Regulators and governments are expanding their focus on incorporating sustainability into investment information and decision making
- There is growing recognition that ESG research and analysis can potentially identify investment risks and generate excess returns
Global Child Forum understands that investors are looking for ways to inform their ESG investment decision-making and we can provide company-specific data and insights needed to make smart moves. Our benchmark, which is 10-years strong, has scored nearly 3,000 of the world’s largest companies on how they address children’s rights indicators. And what better indicator of a company’s social capital, than how they score on children’s issues?
Global Child Forum equips the investment community with the knowledge and expertise to better understand and improve the way their business models and investment portfolios impact children. If you’re interested to know more about how we can support you with our tools and data, please contact our sustainable finance lead, Matt Goodwin matt.goodwin@globalchildforum.org
UNICEF’s tool for Investors on Integrating Children’s Rights Into ESG Assessment
Swedbank Robur is one of the largest asset managers in Scandinavia and the Baltic region and has worked with Save the Children since 2009. As an owner and investor Swedbank Robur can influence companies to take child rights into account. Anna Nilsson is Head of Sustainability at Swedbank Robur. Children’s rights and business videos
Children’s rights are an essential investment in a sustainable future. Safeguarding these rights helps build the strong, well-educated communities that are vital to creating stable, inclusive and productive societies. The private sector impacts children’s lives both directly and indirectly, and all companies in all industries – global, regional or local – can make a difference. Business activity influences the daily life of children in a number of ways, from impoverished communities where children are held back from getting an education because they need to support the family with their income, to the marketplace where children react to marketing messages and learn about the world via the many products surrounding them. Companies that want to take part in the movement pushing sustainable development forward, creating the world that we together have formulated in the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030, need to safeguard, empower and consider the opinions of those we should be creating that world together with. Considering children’s rights holds the possibility of enriching your business and easing your way into the challenges of the future. Read these statements from companies and businesses that have incorporated a child rights approach into their work.
Global Child Forum is an independent, global multi-stakeholder platform for informed dialogue and thought leadership on how to advance children’s rights in support of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This report is part of Global Child Forum’s objective to initiate and share research, raise crucial global awareness, new thinking and cross-sector dialogue regarding children’s rights. 195 investors in Europe and USA were invited to participate in the survey; only 22 responded. Some of the main findings included: Investors typically focus primarily on child labour and less on other children’s rights issues. 32 of the 195 investors have a publicly available responsible investor policy that includes a reference to children’s rights Of the 22 investors who responded, 21 replied that children’s rights have a potentially material impact to their investments.
