There are 160 million children in child labour aged between 5-17, which equates to 1 in 10 children globally. Child labour is 5.8 times more prevalent than forced labour, which currently stands at 27.6 million people, meaning there is a much higher risk of child labour in global supply chains. Child labour has increased by 8 million children since 2016, showing an increasing social issue.

At HACE, we understand that publicly available data does not always give the most accurate picture of how companies perform in ESG. However, our use of AI and generating three separate scores enables us to build insight and relationships which increases transparency on what companies say they are doing, how they are perceived to be behaving and how exposed their supply chain is to the risk of child labour.

The Child Labour Index is a licence model. Our licences are based on geography and/or legal entity access and usage criteria. The Index is an annual subscription licence, charged monthly.

We currently have data points for 55,000 publicly listed companies across multiple geographies and stock exchanges with major global indices included such as FTSE and S&P. We do not yet score private companies.

No, but risk profiles are rules- and assumption-based. The supply chain model is based on the inherent risk and exposure profile of a specific sector, rather than a company’s specific supply chain. This allows HACE to inform users on potential future risks, enabling a proactive approach to investment monitoring. This is not a score to show whether the company has or does not have child labour in their supply chain.

Internal company data on lower tiers of supply chains is not sufficient at scale to monitor performance. HACE has a unique approach to tackling this issue, leveraging innovative data sources to build up risk profiles based on company sector and industry. However, publicly listed companies can also submit more data to inform their score via our Company Engagement Package.

Our company scores are absolute, but both companies and sectors are ranked to enable comparison.

Yes, our public API can be integrated into existing ESG platforms or software. We can provide customised API integration outside of our annual licence fee.

We do not yet score private companies but we can produce due diligence reports on private companies pre- or post-investment for Venture Capital or Private Equity firms.

Upcoming legislation such as SFDR require financial market participants to report PAIs, meaning adverse effects on sustainability factors (including child labour metrics) that result from the investment decisions made. There is currently no other quantitative metric available on the market to report on child labour in real-time. Additionally, child labour is increasingly seen as one of the 'most critical forms of ESG violations’ and so requires specific expertise.

The Index is powered by various forms of AI, but we use HITL (human-in-the-loop) throughout our algorithms. These are essentially verification mechanisms and processes carried out by HACE subject matter experts, which are put in place to verify output from the AI aspects of the Index and monitor scores.