Why Disability Inclusion Is Your Business

In January 2019 at Davos, I’m proud to say Unilever stood with Fujitsu, Bloomberg, Barclays and Accenture to launch ‘The Valuable 500’, a global movement asking 500 CEOs from the world’s biggest companies to put disability on their leadership agendas.

Led by myself and social entrepreneur Caroline Casey, the movement’s aim is to bring together 500 global leaders – already working to improve disability inclusion in their own organisations – to create a leadership collective and drive systemic change. As CEOs, we are in rare positions of extraordinary power and our names, attention and awareness have the ability to make a genuine difference in the world.  

Our first phase has been to build the movement – the first global initiative committed to advancing disability inclusion in business. Many of the world’s largest corporations have already joined us and the collective currently represents over $4.1 trillion in combined revenue and over 10 million employees worldwide. Our second phase will be to redesign the business system to be fully inclusive of those with disabilities, to the benefit of everyone. 

Already we are seeing the green shoots of change. Business leaders are stepping up and driving the message forward. Julie Sweet & Satya Nadella in the US for example – since joining The Valuable 500, they have taken the lead, calling on other CEOs to take a stand. 

But we still have a long way to go. Currently, 50% of companies operating in OECD countries would rather pay a fine than meet the legal requirements to include people with disabilities. Even more worrying is that while 90% of companies think inclusion is important, only 4% are focussed on making offerings inclusive of disability.

This is an enormous missed opportunity. We’re talking about a huge untapped talent pool, a spending power of $8 trillion per annum and 15% of the world’s population. That’s a consumer market larger than the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan and Brazil combined. And yet we deprioritise the inclusion of disabled people both as employees and consumers to a level that, for me, is incomprehensible.

Recently the financial imperative for disability inclusion was once again thrown into the spotlight. Ratings agency Moody’s classified Lloyds Banking Group’s diversity strategy as credit positive. That is, inclusion was linked to financial health. Moody’s positive rating was due to an assessment that improving diversity at all levels will reduce exposure to Lloyds for social risk, along with playing positively with asset managers, who are increasingly concerned about ESG credentials. 

This is no longer a CSR or HR initiative. This is about understanding the huge financial impact a company is burdening itself with by not being inclusive throughout the whole value chain.

There has never been a more appropriate time to drive this agenda forward. COVID-19 and the tragic murder of George Floyd in the US have thrown the subject of exclusion firmly into the public eye. We have seen how extraordinarily adaptable and flexible our business systems can be, and what happens when corporations fail to live up to the sentiments written in their own advertising slogans. Now is the time to consolidate these lessons and build a future that is better for everyone. 

The Valuable 500 will co-create the systems of the future with the most influential power on this planet – business. Because inclusive businesses create inclusive societies, and 1.3 billion people and their families must not be left behind. 

To find out more about how to join The Valuable 500, visit thevaluable500.com.