Children's Rights and Business Principles China Launch

Some of the problems facing children and young people related to business such as pollution and child labour were on the verbal agenda at the China launch of the new Children’s Rights and Business Principles (CRBP).
The importance of collaboration between all relevant stakeholders in the implementation of the Principles was also emphasised by speakers during the event.
Around 80 business leaders, representatives from government-affiliated organisations, academics and child rights experts gathered in Beijing on the 15th of May to find out more about the new global guidelines.
The purpose of the guidelines is to help companies - big and small, foreign and Chinese – to analyse their core businesses to find ways to improve the lives of children.
Developed by the UN Global Compact, Save the Children and UNICEF, the Principles are the first comprehensive guidelines on what businesses can do in the workplace, marketplace and community to respect and support children’s rights. 
Cheng Duosheng, Executive Director of the Global Compact Network China Secretariat, noted that the new guidelines build on existing international instruments relating to children’s rights and CSR and therefore provide a useful framework ready to use.

In the opening speech Ms Liu Meng, China Representative of the UN Global Compact in New York, told the audience: “Actions speak louder than words. The Principles need to be transferred into action by government, business, civil society, the media and individuals.”
Miss Liu talked about how tainted milk powder from four years ago is still affecting the trust of Chinese companies. As an example she explained how, when travelling between China and New York, she was once asked to bring milk powder from the US for her friend.

Elisabeth Dahlin, Secretary General of Save the Children, Sweden, has been involved with the Principles from the start.  She stressed that it is clear that no firm is like another firm; legal compliance is the starting point for all but from there each company has to make its own internal analyses related to the Principles and decide where to start to address issues where the company’s action can infringe in the rights of the child. She said firms need to ask, who do we influence? What is our sphere of influence? Where do we need to rethink our business model to safeguard that we are respecting the rights of the child?

The issue of what firms really should do, and what they could do as an ‘extra’ was also discussed. Bo Viktor Nylund, Senior Advisor of Unicef’s Corporate Social Responsibility department, Geneva office, said that in consultations for the Principles there was talk of “the balance between ‘respecting’ and ‘supporting’ children’s rights. What is a ‘must do’, and what can companies do to support and take things on to another level?”

Mr Cheng of Global Compact Network China said there were several ways to implement the new Principles including awareness events and training and sharing good practices between Chinese firms. He added that currently many firms do not have much awareness of children’s rights. “So how to adjust to these Principles? We have to encourage awareness within the senior leadership. A business must determine its priorities and then see which departments can transform the Principles into internal regulations.”

Huang Wensheng is the Director of Global Compact China Network Secretariat and Deputy Director of the General Office of Sinopec. He agreed there was much work to be done, despite, for example, Sinopec’s efforts in paying to send thousands of girls (the firm’s potential future customers and workers, he said) in poor areas to school and investing in cleaner energy. “When I look at the Principles we have done a lot. But we need to have formal guidelines in our operations and put them at the heart of our business to make it more sustainable, rather than just make a profit.”

Joyce Chau, China Representative of the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), an NGO based in Brussels, emphasised the importance of firms stepping up to share methods of dealing with issues relating to children’s rights.
“Firms are shy to talk about sensitive issues like child labour for instance. This limits development because firms do not want to share challenges and discuss best practices. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Britain during the Second World War, said the price of greatness was responsibility – I say the price of not being responsible is our future generations.”

Marcus Wilert, CSR Program Developer at H & M, explained that his company was already trying to implement the Principles in its supply chain. “Working with CCR CSR we engage our suppliers and their workers to discuss parenting when living far away from their children. We hope we can engage our suppliers and help them to realise the challenges their workforces are facing.”

In answer to a question posed on Weibo during the launch on how firms can balance between pollution, which affects children’s health, and profits, Mr Wilert said H & M is trying to cut down on pollution, “working intensively with energy efficiency in our supply chain, and working on water efficiency too. For example, in the denim supply chain we managed last year to save 150 million litres of water.” But he added: “Pollution in the supply chain is growing and we struggle with it.”

Sinopec’s Mr Huang, in answer to the same Weibo question, said the giant firm, which operates in more than 40 countries, is trying “to control the impact on the environment. We have done a lot to eliminate pollution, such as spending 48.6 billion RMB over the last ten years making refineries produce cleaner burn fuel. We also have new technology to reduce car emissions.”
The audience also heard about the government’s attention to children’s rights, by, for example, incorporating the development of children into official five-year plans.

Britta Ostrom, executive director of CCR CSR – one of the organisers of the launch event - said the bottom line was that  “without leadership commitment to bring the CRBP into the heart of the matter at the highest level of companies, change will not happen. Also, we need due diligence; we need a systematic assessment in each company to see how there is an impact on children and young people. And we need remediation – if there is an infringement of children’s rights, how to address the issue? “
Ms Ostrom said all stakeholders – businesses, government, academia, social organisations, the children themselves and the media - need to get involved to raise awareness.   “We can all do it,” she said. “If we each go away and tell five people today, the Principles are spreading already.”

More than 600 businesses and more than 2000 children were involved in consultations for the Principles, as well as civil society, government representatives and child rights experts. A public online feedback channel was launched and several thousand people were reached in efforts to build awareness of the Principles before the global launch in London in March 2012.

For more information on the new Principles please download here.