The role of impact accounting in the child labour

Abstract

Child Labour is a devastating problem that is impacting society since ever, with predominancy since the industrial revolution. How can we live in a society where our childrenhave access to good health, safety, and education, while on the other side of the world are kids working to earn their money, sometimes in dangerous jobs and long shifts, instead of being at school?The main objective of this thesis is to emphasize the importance and urgency to end child labour. The second objective is to study and quantify how can the impact of child labour be accounted for in the financial statements of companies, through the terms of Impact Accounting. Impact Accounting is a financial equivalent model, currently being developed atHarvard Business School. Despite the topic is still under study, according to a set of research,the work developed in this thesis creates a method to reach a value to attribute to this impact. As there is already a method to quantify the impact of Child Labour, the stakeholders should ensure that multinationals are accountable for those impacts, all over their supply chain, including the ones caused by sub-contracted entities in “third world” countries. Therefore, the ultimate aim of this work is to contribute for solving this issue, by supporting research to push for impact accounting.

Date of Award	17 Oct 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Nuno Moreira da Cruz (Supervisor)