Bloomberg, Sainsbury’s, APM, Danske Bank UK and Cerealto Siro Foods are the latest global companies that have signed up to The Valuable 500 initiative. These companies join Unilever, Microsoft, Barclays, Fujitsu, Omnicom, Cinepolis and Accenture – some of the first global businesses to join the initiative earlier this year. It was launched by #valuable Founder and social entrepreneur, Dr Caroline Casey, at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2019, to help promote disability inclusion in business.
Today, over one billion people across the world live with some form of disability – that’s 15% of the global population, or one in seven people. Yet their value, which is equivalent to disregarding a potential market the size of US, Brazil, Indonesia and Pakistan combined, “is routinely ignored by business”, confirms Dr Casey.
DISABILITY ON THE RISE
According to the World Health Organisation, up to half of businesses in OECD countries choose to pay fines rather than meet quotas on disability. Along with their friends, families and communities, the one billion disabled people worldwide also hold a disposable annual income of $8 trillion a year, equating to an opportunity that business cannot afford to ignore. Of those one billion, 80% of disabilities are acquired later life, and our ageing global population means the prevalence of disability is on the rise.
In fact, research from EY (commissioned by #valuable), reveals that disability is still woefully absent from the majority of board level discussions globally, with the majority (56%) of global senior executives rarely or never discussing disability on their leadership agendas. This timely initiative aims to tackle the trend of ‘businesses claiming they are diverse, yet excluding disability from their definition of diversity’.
Alongside the launch of The Valuable 500 Initiative in Davos, Casey unveiled the ‘Diversish’ video campaign. The campaign highlights the fact that while many businesses call themselves diverse, most overlook, ignore or postpone anything to do with disability. So it calls for business leaders to stop being ‘diversish’ and commit to ‘real accountability and action on disability inclusion, by taking a simple first step and tabling disability on their board agendas’.
COMBATTING ‘DIVERSISH’ EFFORTS
“It’s no longer good enough for companies to say ‘disability doesn’t fit with our brand’ or ‘it’s a good idea to explore next year’,” stated Casey. “Businesses cannot be truly inclusive if disability is continuously ignored on leadership agendas. I urge businesses to join The Valuable 500 movement to take a stand against being diversish and instead be the tipping-point for change, and unlock the business, social and economic value of disabled people across the world. We also need brands that are already great examples of inclusive behaviour to show other businesses how it’s done, and help us end à la carte inclusion because the potential of 1.3 billion should not be ignored.”
Photo credit: Courtesy of #valuable.
#valuable, the organisation behind the launch of The Valuable 500, is also supported by a number of high profile business leaders, such as Omnicom’s Executive Vice President Janet Riccio, Virgin Media’s Founder Sir Richard Branson, Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman and EY Chairman & CEO Mark Weinberger. The Valuable 500 initiative aims to get 500 global businesses to commit to putting disability on their board agendas in 2019.
To apply to become a Valuable 500 business, click here.
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