How Do You Leverage The Power Of AI & The Investor Community To Create A World Free From Child Labour?

In a time of economic uncertainty can we be forgiven for bad choices? Some, sure. But wouldn’t you want to understand the risk of child labour being exploited in the production of your latest purchase? If you knew your latest spend funded child labour, would you have bought the item?

People, Purpose & Planet. You may have heard us mention our motto once or twice! This is because it’s at the centre of our organisational compass. The compass that guides our every decision. Unlike so many corporate values dreamed up by marketing, we spent the best part of a year developing, revisiting, and scrutinising our every word. We didn’t stop until we were happy that our compass was something that we could proudly use to hold ourselves to account. A measure that we could use as a reflective tool, to question our decision making.

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Why are we telling you all of this? Because we have a NEW corporate partnership that we are immensely proud to be part of. A partnership that on the surface, was a perfect fit for the Eden Smith Group & Concept Zero. We are pleased to announce our partnership with HACE.

I have great pleasure in announcing we are to be partnering with HACE, the first AI-powered Child Labour Index. When Lucy Lynch first told me about the amazing work that Eleanor Harry and the team were doing, I was already keen for Eden Smith to be involved. They are truly tackling the issue with a visionary approach, using the power of data and AI to reduce the already horrendous 160 million children currently in child labour.

Eden Smith is on a similar journey to help businesses become sustainable. Child labour is a huge, sometimes unknown, problem within company supply chains. We are confident HACE will benefit from the Eden Smith network of data leaders, C-suite and events, such as Big Data London, where they will further raise awareness and we can take a further step forward to eradicate the issue. Honoured to be part of their journey. 

Jez Clark, CEO & CO-Founder of Eden Smith

Below The Surface

HACE envisions a world free from child labour. Although they are not naïve to the challenges.

There are currently 160 million child labourers in the world. Despite global awareness and child labour legislation the problem is getting worse.  It has increased by 8 million children over the past 4 years’. It exists in nearly every supply chain, in every country, in the world.

Companies (and therefore consumers) have little visibility into their global supply chains creating blind spots for risk of child labour. This opens organisations and their investors to potential financial risk.  

The Child Labour Index

HACE is launching the Child Labour Index; the only quantitative metric in the world for child labour performance, at a company & group level.

Child labour is a complex social issue in supply chains and one that causes massive reputational and financial risk to both companies and investors. The Index provides the solution for investors to understand the underlying risk of child labour in their portfolio companies and funds. The risk is both financial and legislative. Identifying the risk enables long-term sustainable returns.

Investors can monitor real-time company performance on child labour in supply chains. The Index is updated every 24 hours, alongside financial markets, and therefore provides reliable and up-to-date monitoring of company performance. This information on child labour support end users, which range from asset managers, asset owners and professional services, as well as financial institutions.

Raising Awareness of Risk within Child Labour

By raising the alert on the risk, to the investor community, child labour is effectively rid the world of that would be fab. The Index also enables organisations to comply with existing and upcoming legislation including SFDR, SDR and ISSB reporting requirements.

Using the Index provides quantifiable and comparable data that boosts a firms credibility and brand reputation. Publication of results creates a transparent communications chain, ensures long-term sustainable value for customers and will establish brands as market leaders, putting the in ‘S’ in ESG and avoids accusation of ‘greenwashing’ or ‘purpose washing’.

After we scratched the surface we knew we had to partner with HACE and help spread the word to our data and sustainability community. Eleanor Harry, Founder & CEO, is an authoritative voice on child labour and an impassioned innovator with an inspiring mission. We are committed to championing this fantastic initiative that serves people, purpose & planet.

“We’re really thrilled to continue and expand our partnership with Eden Smith Group. We have worked with their Nurture Programme for 18 months already and have seen immense value through it, both to the Nurture students themselves and to HACE as a business.

Ultimately, we see the value of the partnership with ESG through the increasing impact we can have on the 160 million children in child labour currently across the world.

The access to Eden Smith’s extensive network through the data world and beyond is something that is truly invaluable to us, and we can’t wait to see where it takes us.

The partnership with ESG is a fantastic example of how we can continue to involve more stakeholder groups in the challenge of tackling child labour, something that we’re extremely passionate about at HACE. It is always refreshing, motivating and exciting to see that passion reflected back to us, as it always is with the whole team at Eden Smith!”

Eleanor Harry, Founder & CEO of HACE

How Can You Support HACE’s Vision?

HACE are currently looking for potential users i.e. asset managers, asset owners and professional services, as well as financial institutions, who would like to take part in a feedback PoC or a pilot opportunity, with the view to join the Index’s first clients as we go to market in October 2023.