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Virgin Group Founder, Sir Richard Branson and Unilever’s Paul Polman among global leaders backing the campaign.
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Virgin Media and Omnicom announce strategic partnership with #valuable.
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#valuable to play a leading role at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting focused on bolstering inclusion for the one billion living with a disability.
- #valuable aims to recognise the value of the one billion people living with a disability globally, and their families.
London: High profile global business leaders and companies have today committed to take accountability for disability inclusion in business, by supporting #valuable – a worldwide call to action for business to recognise the value and worth of the one billion disabled people globally. Founder of #valuable, Caroline Casey, commented:
To drive forward this change, the following global business leaders have committed to be accountable for disability within their businesses and across their full supply chain. They are the first to support the #valuable campaign, helping to put disability inclusion on the international business agenda, and keep it there:
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Sir Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Group
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Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever
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Janet Riccio, EVP of Omnicom Group and Dean of Omnicom UniversityVirgin Media and Omnicom have become strategic partners of #valuable, representing a major milestone for the campaign which continues to be at the forefront of the global conversation around disability inclusion:
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Virgin Media is becoming a leading business voice on disability in the UK. The company has joined forces with the disability equality charity, Scope, to support a million disabled people to get and stay in work by the end of 2020. The business is also transforming its workplaces, practices and policies for disabled employees and customers. As a key partner of the #valuable movement, Virgin Media will encourage UK business leaders to join its campaign to create workplaces where disabled people can thrive.
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Omnicom will take the lead in spreading the message of disability inclusion in business and igniting a global conversation about a world where everyone is valued equally. Omnicom has long supported its employees by creating a diverse and inclusive environment that nurtures their creative energy. That means diversity in backgrounds, race, gender, age and experience, as well as embracing those with disabilities.
#valuable is also proud to announce that it has joined forces with the World Economic Forum, which announced last week that disability inclusion will form part of its Annual Meeting agenda for the first-time next month. As part of its focus on bolstering inclusion for the one billion people in the world living with a disability, the World Economic Forum will announce its official support of #valuable.
Among other highlights of the Forum’s disability inclusion agenda, Caroline Casey and Paul Polman will co-host a press conference on The Accessibility Revolution and talk about the ambitions of the #valuable campaign on Thursday 24 January 2019.
#valuable is delighted to announce that it has teamed up with a range of experts who will lend their skills and experience to #valuable’s mission to activate the business community to tackle disability exclusion around the world. They already include the ILO GBDN, The Marketing Society, Business Disability Forum, EY and Ruh Global.
Launched in 2017, #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.
Learning from past campaigns, which have led to systemic change, #valuable is working to engage the world’s most influential businesses leaders, brands and platforms to make a global call to action. Last year, this ambitious campaign was launched at One Young World – known as the “Junior Davos” for young leaders. It reached over 810 million people and activated a new generation of future leaders who care passionately about disability inclusion and aren’t afraid to be vocal about it.
Today, over one billion people across the world live with some form of disability – 15% of the global population, or 1 in 7 people – but their value is routinely ignored by business, equivalent to disregarding a potential market the size of US, Brazil, Indonesia and Pakistan combined.
Of those one billion, 80% of disabilities are acquired in later life, and our ageing global population means the prevalence of disability is on the rise.
The current global employment rate for disabled people is half that of non-disabled people, a gap that has widened since 2010. According to the World Health Organisation, up to half of businesses in OECD countries choose to pay fines rather than meet quotas on disability.
Yet, combined with their friends, families and communities, the one billion disabled people hold a disposable annual income of $8 trillion a year – an opportunity that business cannot afford to ignore.
Media contacts.
Eloise Keightley, Seven Hills.
- Email: [email protected]
Richard Poston, Director of Communications, the Valuable 500.
Email: [email protected]
Notes to Editors.
About #valuable & Binc.
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.
About Virgin Media.
Virgin Media offers four multi award-winning services across the UK and Ireland: broadband, TV, mobile phone and landline.
Its dedicated, ultrafast network delivers the fastest widely-available broadband speeds to homes and businesses and it’s expanding this through its Project Lightning programme, which could extend its network to up to 17 million premises.
Its interactive Virgin TV service brings live TV, thousands of hours of on-demand programming and the best apps and games to customers through a set-top box, as well as on-the-go through tablets and smartphones.
Virgin Mobile launched the world’s first virtual mobile network and offers fantastic value and innovative services with 4G connectivity. It is also one of the largest fixed-line home phone providers in the UK and Ireland.
Through Virgin Media Business it supports entrepreneurs, businesses and the public sector, delivering the fastest widely available broadband speeds and tailor-made services.
Virgin Media is part of Liberty Global, the world’s largest international TV and broadband company. Liberty Global connects 21 million customers through operations in 10 countries across Europe subscribing to 45 million TV, broadband internet and telephony services. It also serves 6 million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service through 12 million access points across its footprint.
About Omnicom Group.
Omnicom Group (www.omnicomgroup.com) is a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom’s branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.
Our 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 people with disabilities to fully access the job market and guaranteeing equal and accessible education through the creation of an inclusive environment.