"Measuring the Impact of Business on Children's Rights", 18 July 2014

The ‘Measuring Business and Human Rights’ project (MB&HR) conducts a study on the issues of existing children’s rights measurement tools...The instruments that were taken into account were: (i) Children’s Rights in Impact Assessments (UNICEF); (ii) Working on the Rights Shoes Scorecard (Stop Child Labour); (iii) Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel & Tourism (The Code); and (iv) Goodweave Standards (Goodweave)...A first observationis the limited scope of the existing tools. Both the ‘Working on the Rights Shoes Scorecard’ and the ‘Goodweave Standards’ for example, focus on the prohibition of child labor, and thus deal with only one aspect of children’s rights. Also, the existing tools typically focus merely on a particular sector such as the carpet industry (Goodweave Standards), tourism sector (Code of Conduct) or the retail industry (Working on the Rights Shoes Scorecard)...Furthermore, most tools are meant solely as guidance. A good example thereof, is the ‘Children’s rights in Impact Assessments’ tool developed by UNICEF. The tool provides primarily policy and process ‘criteria’ which entails a tick-boxing risk, rather than actually resulting in improved children’s rights performances. The implementation / development of new policies and processes is a good starting point but one will have to make sure that it actually results in the increased respect for children’s rights by also providing impact indicators. To achieve this, emphasis has been  put on guiding companies and not necessarily on creating peer-pressure on businesses. Another issue is the limited accessibility to the existing tools, given that access is sometimes made dependent on paying a membership fee which is the case for the ‘Code of Conduct’ and the ‘Goodweave Standards’. Often, only the larger multinational businesses are able to pay these fees, leaving out small and medium-sized enterprises although these represent 99% of the businesses in Europe. As a result, a sort of favoritism is created towards multinationals and the companies that actually need the guidance the most, find it difficult to get access. More generally, the limited accessibility also adds to the lack of transparency. Often there is also no clarity about the applied methodology which makes it hard to assess the reliability of the measurement tool.  In the ‘Working on the Rights Shoes Scorecard’ for example, the processes and policies of shoe businesses are assessed according to a good, moderate or bad standard. However, it is not clear what the criteria is in order for something to be considered good, moderate or bad so the measurement process is not transparent and lacks clarity. Finally, the majority of tools, such as the ‘Children’s Rights in Impact Assessment’ and the ‘Working on the Rights Shoes Scorecard’, use corporate self-reporting as data-gathering mechanism which could undermine the validity of the data and the tool’s credibility and legitimacy. To improve existing tools and the creation of future tools, MB&HR presents some preliminary solutions along with possible guidelines...The right format to develop new tools or indicators does not exist as it depends on several different actors. The creation process of indicators is constantly refined but meta-data such as the audience, goal and financing of the tool are often forgotten. Therefore, the impact of meta-data on the development of a measurement tool and indicators should not be underestimated and should be taken into account more. In addition, before developing a new tool one should consider what the added value would be. As mentioned before, a market-study of existing initiatives is essential and more coordination between existing initiatives is vital to assure valuable content. It is also worth considering the integration of new children’s rights initiatives in existing children’s rights and/or human rights measurement tools. Furthermore, a difference should be made between assessment criteria and impact indicators. Most of the existing tools provide primarily guidance and are not intended to be monitoring tools that could, for example, be used by civil society. Therefore, more children’s rights monitoring tools that include impact indicators should be developed. This inclusion would also be relevant for companies who are obliged to assess their impact (UNGP 17). Finally, there is a clear need for more transparency, legitimacy and accessibility. Existing and new tools should be publicly available and transparent regarding the relevant legal framework and methodology that is used, such as the ‘Children’s Rights in Impact Assessment’ tool, in order to enhance the tool’s reliability.  To enhance the legitimacy of the tool, a multi-stakeholder consultation during the development and other data-gathering mechanisms, such as third-party reports and surveys, should be considered. Measurement tools should also be accessible to all. The use of membership fees is not necessarily a problem but it would be advisable to differentiate the financial contribution according to the means and profits of the concerned company as is rightly done by the ‘Code of Conduct’. Also, the utilized legal framework and methodology must be clearly stated and clarified, in order to enhance the tool’s reliability. To enhance the legitimacy of the tool, a multi-stakeholder consultation and other data-gathering mechanisms, besides corporate self-reporting, should be considered.