“UNICEF study reveals significant gap between corporate commitments and action for children across Asia”, 8 July 2026

A new UNICEF study of 1,399 listed companies across nine Asian countries finds that while most companies make commitments on human rights, few identify, report on or measure their impacts on children, revealing significant gaps both in disclosure and in action.

The report, Making Children Count: Sustainability Reporting across Emerging Asia, developed with The Centre for Child Rights and Business, finds that children remain largely invisible in corporate sustainability reporting, despite making up around one in three people across much of the region…

The report finds that while nearly 3 in 4 companies report human rights commitments and 88 per cent report child-related community activities as corporate philanthropy, only one in 20 companies identify children as stakeholders and only one in 100 assess their business impacts on children.

The disconnect is particularly stark in sectors tied to some of the region's greatest challenges for children.

Only a small fraction of companies discloses how they are addressing risks and material impacts on children in climate change, online harms, malnutrition, child labour and the working conditions of parents. Just 2 per cent mention children in climate strategies, fewer than 10 per cent of tech companies report measures to protect children online, and only 3 per cent of companies commit to implementing protective marketing practices for children. Even within the food and beverage sector, just 12 per cent disclose protective marketing practices.

On child labour, where 72 per cent of companies have commitments, only 2 per cent explain how they remediate cases when these are found, while just 3 per cent support suppliers to improve practices. The picture is slightly better on family-friendly workplaces, where reporting is more common, but meaningful commitments on living wages remain rare…