Child and teen mental health and digital media

With child and teen mental health and digital media in the spotlight, should this be a fresh consideration for those building ethical portfolios?

Ethical Partners was pleased to recently talk with Alex Vargas at Money Management about this crucial question and one that relates directly to our recent major report on Child Rights across the ASX.

“Robyn Parkin, Head of Sustainability at Ethical Partners Funds Management believes this thinking is long overdue. “It's such an important issue, because digital is serious area of vulnerability for children and youth and I don't think companies or investors or advisors have necessarily looked at it enough. It's an emerging area of understanding, and something that we need to analyse and engage on,” she told Money Management.”

“Parkin’s firm Ethical Partners Funds Management and charity UNICEF Australia released a joint report in September, Integrating Child Rights across the ASX: A UNICEF Investor Tool Benchmarking Report, which benchmarked ASX-listed companies using publicly-available information. As well as looking at broader areas to do with child rights, the report contained some eye-opening statistics around digital media…….Less than 3% of S&P/ASX 200 companies disclose that they have measures in place to protect children in relation to digital services. Only 6% of S&P/ASX 200 companies disclose that they have a responsible marketing commitment on limiting their marketing to children and only 2% of S&P/ASX 200 companies disclose that they have responsible digital marketing practices in regards to children. And not a single S&P/ASX 200 company discloses that they have specific data privacy standards for children.”

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