APM, Australia’s leading provider of disability employment services, is strengthening its commitment to disability inclusion in business by announcing its membership of The Valuable 500.

APM is one of the first ten global companies which is committing to place disability inclusion on their board agendas as part of The Valuable 500 – a global campaign to raise awareness of the value of the over 1 billion disabled people across the world.

The campaign recognises that when businesses take the lead and take action, society will follow leading to real change being made.

The Valuable 500 launched at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Summit in Davos in January and is calling on global business leaders to become accountable for disability inclusion in their businesses.

Group CEO Michael Anghie said APM was proud to become the first Australian business to sign up to The Valuable 500 Campaign.

APM operates in ten countries and we support more than 350,000 people to improve their lives each year in a variety of programs, with a strong focus on helping drive better outcomes for people with disability.

We are also Australia’s largest provider of disability employment services and every single day we see the social, business and economic value of people with disability and the benefit of greater inclusion in our work places and communities.

We are pleased to join The Valuable 500 Campaign to help improve the lives of people with disability and get disability firmly on the business agenda so more companies realise what great employees they’ve been missing out on. One in five Australians live with a disability, that’s more than four million people and we all have a role to drive greater workplace and community diversity. “Everyone has a right to a job, respect and inclusion. People with disability are no different; this is about fairness and doing the right thing.

Michael Anghie, CEO APM

 

Established in 1994, APM is a leading global mission-driven human services organisation with one simple purpose, to enable better lives. Through multiple businesses and services in 10 countries, APM supports more than 350,000 people each year to make positive changes and improve their lives.

APM joins global brands Virgin Media, BraunAbility, Cinepolis, Unilever, Barclays, Accenture, Microsoft, Fujitsu, and Danske Bank as the first ten global businesses to sign up to the disability inclusion campaign.

 

BraunAbility is honored to join The Valuable 500 and help drive change around diversity and inclusion. Our company was founded nearly 50 years ago by Ralph Braun, a wheelchair user who was determined to improve his own life and the lives of others like him through mobility innovation.

We are expanding this purpose beyond the products we produce by committing to diversify our workforce and to take action for mobility inclusion through a new initiative, Drive for Inclusion, our movement to unite and mobilize those with mobility disabilities.

Staci Kroon, BraunAbility President and CEO

 

These companies and leaders are taking a number of steps to support disability inclusion and equality throughout their businesses – reflecting a groundswell of corporate appetite to drive action on disability inclusion in business.

The campaign seeks to tackle the trend for businesses to claim they are diverse, but exclude disability from their definition of diversity.

The need for the Valuable 500 campaign comes as research by EY commissioned by #valuable has found 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.

Further research from Edelman’s 2019 Trust Barometer found that 62% of employees are looking to their CEO for leadership during challenging times.

Omniwomen UK Leadership Summit.

Today’s announcement also comes as Caroline Casey speaks at The Omniwomen UK Leadership Summit, which will bring together 300 Omniwomen delegates to celebrate International Women’s Day and advocate for inclusion in every form.

Omniwomen is a day of workshops organised by global media, marketing and corporate communications company Omnicom. This year’s theme is ‘Supporting Diverse Paths to Leadership’ to celebrate and enable women from all backgrounds to fulfil their potential.

 

I am over the moon to be celebrating APM as the first Australian sign up to The Valuable 500 today. APM is a leader in its sector so we welcome their efforts to improve disability inclusion in global business with open arms.

Diversity and inclusion are more than just a statistic. Being able to seize opportunities and live life to the fullest is essential to the billion people across the world who experience disability.

I urge businesses to join The Valuable 500 movement and stop being ‘diversish’. 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’. Businesses cannot be truly inclusive if disability is continuingly ignored on leadership agendas.

I’m proud to be speaking at this year’s Omniwomen UK + Allies Leadership Summit – to play my part in making inclusion everyone’s business.

Caroline Casey, Founder of #valuable

 

#valuable is a catalyst for an inclusion revolution that exists to position disability equally on the global business leadership agenda. It is spearheaded by award-winning activist, social entrepreneur and Binc founder Caroline Casey, who is registered blind.

In 2017, Caroline launched #valuable at One Young World, the global summit for young leaders, providing a platform to activate a new generation of future leaders who care passionately about disability inclusion and aren’t afraid to be vocal about it.

Caroline set off on a boundary-pushing, month-long 1,000-kilometre horse adventure through Colombia to the opening ceremony of One Young World to engage next generation leaders with the power to make change.

Caroline took to the One Young World stage once more in 2018, speaking about the Inclusion Revolution.

To apply to be a Valuable 500 business, please use the contact form below.

Media contacts.

Eloise Keightley, Seven Hills.

Richard Poston, Director of Communications, the Valuable 500.

Notes to Editors.

Applying for Membership of The Valuable 500.

To apply to be a Valuable 500 business, please use the contact form below. Membership of The Valuable 500 includes:

By becoming a member of The Valuable 500, you agree to:

About #valuable.

Launched by Binc, #valuable is a campaign working to ensure businesses globally recognise the value of the one billion people around the world living with a disability. We believe that building a global society that recognises the value of the 1 billion people living with a disability starts with business. We’re on a mission to make sure businesses across the world recognise the value of the one billion people living with a disability.

Binc was founded by social entrepreneur and activist Caroline Casey in 2015, with a mission to ignite a historic global movement for a new age of business inclusion. Binc is capitalising on Caroline Casey’s 18-year track record of success engaging over 450 organisations and working with 500,000 business leaders. Binc fundamentally believes that inclusive business creates inclusive societies and is initiating a new approach to business that genuinely includes the 1 billion people living in the world with a disability. Binc is the founding team behind valuable, an ambitious global campaign to put inclusivity on top of the business agenda around the world in 2019. Binc is using a tried and tested formula that has worked in the past for gender, race and LGBT to leverage the exponential rise of The Diversity and Inclusion Agenda.

Definition of disability:

#valuable uses the definition provided by the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with disabilities, which defines a person living with a disability as ‘those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.’

Disability and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The need to advance disability inclusion around the globe is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Disability or ‘persons with disabilities’ are specifically referenced 11 times in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with a further six references to ‘persons in vulnerable situations’. Principally with reference to: promoting inclusive economic growth that allows disabled people to fully access the job market and guaranteeing equal and accessible education through the creation of inclusive environments.