Friday 15 June 2012

Business, sustainability and children (The Guardian, By Maritza Ascencios for UNICEF)


Ahead of Rio+20, a twitter chat gave audiences the opportunity to question leading CSR figures from Unilever and UNICEF, and learn more about children's rights, business and sustainability

Businesses small and large inevitably interact with and have an effect on the lives of children both directly and indirectly. With 2.2 billion children under 18 years old – almost one third of the world's population – businesses should consider children as they develop their sustainability strategies.
As part of the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum, UNICEF, the UN Global Compact and Save the Children will bring together business leaders at a panel event to discuss why business should consider children as they develop their sustainability strategies. The event, taking place on 17 June, is set to engage business leaders and other stakeholders to explore how their decisions can maximise the positive impacts and minimise the negative impacts on children. In the lead up to the Rio event, UNICEF hosted a Twitter chat which aimed to open up the conversation and encourage questions on children's rights, business and sustainability, to the groups most affected – children and young people.

Suba Jayasekaran, CSR specialist from UNICEF and Keith Weed, chief marketing and communications officer from Unilever, explained how businesses can step up their efforts to respect and support children's rights in the workplace, marketplace and community. For UNICEF, the framework for business to respect and support children's rights is the Children's Rights and Business Principles, which outlines specific business actions that can be taken. Recognising children as key stakeholders is essential around issues such as youth, child labour, child protection, health and nutrition.

The role of small business
Asked how the millions of small businesses can get more involved, UNICEF responded that it provides tools and guides for small business to begin learning more. Participants responded that a problem for small business is that many are unaware of the issues and thus will never seek tools. In order to promote the involvement of businesses effectively to achieve more impact, Unilever indicated that businesses need to engage on the whole value chain, citing an example of working with more than one million smallholder farmers. For UNICEF, work at country level through different platforms and associations provide other opportunities to engage small business and national companies.
To encourage traditional profit-driven businesses to engage more deeply in children rights, Unilever replied that for businesses to be sustainable the issues involve not just today's customers, but also tomorrow's customers and workers. This is especially relevant given the transparency and memory of the Internet age because businesses will be held to account.
Marketing to children
Another challenging question concerned Unilever's position regarding the marketing of food to children. Weed pointed out Unilever's global marketing code which guides marketing – for example, this guide ensures no marketing to children under the age of six and strict standards exist for marketing to children between six and 12. A subsequent question on heavily branded corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities aimed at the youth by the tobacco and alcohol industry elicited a response from UNICEF pointing to principle six of the Children's Rights & Business Principles on marketing and advertising that respects children's rights and promotes positive living.

How sustainable should a business be?
The question of how a business gauges how sustainable, ethical or responsible is 'enough' garnered a response from Unilever that in a resource-constrained world, decoupling growth from environmental impact is essential. Sustaining growth without having a negative impact on the environment while delivering increased social value is the approach Unilever is taking. In November 2010, Unilever launched its Sustainable Living Plan which is its business model that commits the company to a ten-year journey towards sustainable growth.
In support of such efforts, UNICEF has just released Children are Everyone's Business, a practical handbook to help companies understand and address their impact on children's rights.
With participants from 59 countries joining in to learn and challenge business, the twitter chat generated interest from around the globe in advance of Rio+20 conference.
Businesses represented at the Rio+20 panel event - Children and Business: Making the Connection to Sustainability - will consider these and other issues with speakers from corporations including Grupo Arcor, Ikea and Novo Nordisk.