Using Child-Lens Investing (CLI) to influence investees’ policies and practices
UNICEF’s Child-Lens Investing Framework helps investors understand how investments affect children and use their influence to minimize harm and improve children’s well-being
All investments and businesses have an impact on children: through their operations, labour practices, supply chains, products and services, designing and marketing practices. Yet child-related risks are often blind spots for investors, particularly when they are seldom considered and if so, only as part of broader ESG or human rights considerations without a specific child lens.
UNICEF’s work on Child Rights and Business, as part of a broader responsible business conduct agenda, has long highlighted the important role that businesses and investors can play in recognizing and addressing child-related risks. It provides frameworks and tools for understanding how business activities can affect children across the workplace, marketplace, community, and environment.
UNICEF’s Child-Lens Investing Framework builds on this foundation by helping investors better identify where children may be affected by business activity, and how investor influence can be used to reduce harm and improve outcomes.
Child Considerations in Investees’ Policies and Practices
How can investors use their influence to better protect and support children?
For UNICEF, a key entry point lies in how investors can shape the policies and practices of the companies they invest in. This includes integrating child-related considerations into investment due diligence and actively engaging existing investees over time.
Through due diligence, investors can identify and assess child-related risks - such as child labor, harmful marketing practices, digital safety concerns, or gaps in family friendly workplace policies - and signal that these issues matter. Through stewardship, they can go further, engaging with companies to strengthen their policies, improve practices, and build capacity.
That was the focus of the recent UNICEF CLI Community of Practice session, which brought together pioneering investors to explore why Child-Lens Investing matters and how investors can apply it through screening, due diligence, and stewardship.
Together, these approaches provide investors with a powerful lever to reduce harm and improve outcomes for children. But what does this look like in practice?
Across the Community of Practice, investors shared a range of ways to integrate a child lens into ESG and due diligence processes. For instance, some investors are tailoring UNICEF’s CLI questions to specific sectors, geographies, and investee contexts, while others are embedding child-related considerations into broader ESG tools and screening processes focused on issues such as responsible marketing, digital safety, child labour, and family-friendly workplace policies. Members also discussed approaches such as supporting investee capacity building, and advocacy around better understanding children’s vulnerability and the related risks.
Prioritization, data and need for guidance
As investors consider integrating a child lens into their assessment of investees’ policies and practices, prioritization has emerged as a key challenge.
Investors emphasized the need for clearer guidance on identifying relevant child-related risks, whether by sector, geography, or theme, and prioritization among these. They have also highlighted the need for more targeted, sector-specific questions.
This challenge is compounded by data gaps and investee capacity constraints. When investors aim to integrate child-related questions into due diligence, the data needed to respond effectively is not always available or consistent. As a result, investors are looking for specific sector relevant risk tools, but also for clearer guidance, particularly on how to prioritize risks and determine which questions matter most.
Building new tools
These discussions point to a clear opportunity to further support investors in applying Child-Lens Investing in practice.
Investors highlight three interconnected priorities for advancing Child-Lens Investing in practice:
- Clearer ways to prioritise risks, supported by more accessible data and stronger benchmarks
- Greater integration with existing gender and climate lenses, to strengthen the case for CLI and avoid duplication
- Practical approaches to implementation, including starting small and building momentum over time
In this context, UNICEF’s global presence and technical expertise plays a key role in supporting the development of practical tools and guidance that respond to investor needs while strengthening the broader ecosystem. Building on a growing set of existing tools that have already supported investors in integrating child rights considerations, this includes advancing the evidence base on what works for children, improving access to relevant data, and supporting the integration of a child lens into existing standards and frameworks.
Looking ahead
As our work continues to evolve, these insights are directly informing the next phase: developing more practical tools, strengthening alignment across the field, and supporting investors to take action.
In doing so, the Community of Practice is helping advance Child-Lens Investing towards broader implementation, moving from understanding why it matters to how it can be implemented in practice, laying the groundwork for more consistent and scalable approaches that can improve outcomes for children.
