NBIM’s children’s rights risk assessment

As an investor in approximately 8,700 companies worldwide, NBIM expects companies to prevent the worst forms of child labour and promote children’s rights in their operations and supply chains. NBIM annually assesses the extent to which the companies it invests in meet its expectations, as outlined in the document NBIM Investor Expectations on Children’s Rights, and publishes the results in compliance reports. The evaluations are based entirely on the companies’ public reporting on these issues.

By naming those with the highest scores -- in the annual NBIM Children’s Rights Disclosure Rating (table below) --  NBIM seeks to encourage other companies to follow suit. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that about 115 million children worldwide are involved in hazardous work that is likely to harm their health, safety or morals.

The 2010 assessment looked at 527 companies NBIM was invested in at the end of 2010. These companies belonged to sectors with high exposure to risk related to children’s rights and child labour. The sectors were food and beverage, agriculture, apparel retail, technology hardware and equipment, steel, mining, and toys.

NBIM looked at each company’s public disclosure of information in 2010 to determine how the company scored on ten criteria (indicators) for managing child labour and children’s rights risks. The results of the evaluation were first published in a compliance report in April 2011. The names of the companies with the highest scores were first disclosed on 10 June 2011 in the annual NBIM Children’s Rights Disclosure Rating.