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Seven of the world’s largest financial institutions, including the Bank of England, Lloyds Banking Group, RBS and HSBC UK, have signed up to disability inclusion campaign The Valuable 500.
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Campaign is seeking 500 global businesses to commit to putting disability on their board agendas in 2019.
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Marks the most significant move the banking sector has made to date to address disability inclusion in business.
London, 22nd June: The Bank of England, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC UK, RBS, Monex, Standard Chartered and Bank Hapoalim of Israel, today announce that they have become members of The Valuable 500 – a worldwide call to action launched earlier this year which strives to place disability inclusion at the top of business agendas.
These organisations will join others already signed up to the initiative, including Barclays, Danske Bank and Citibanamex of Mexico, placing the banking sector at the front of the fight for inclusion.
The campaign, launched at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Summit in Davos in January, will hold global business leaders accountable for disability inclusion in their businesses by ensuring it is discussed at leadership level and placed on their board agendas.
The banking sector has been increasingly recognised for its efforts to improve inclusion of disabled people in the workplace in recent years: in 2017, for example, The Business Disability Forum awarded RBS its ‘Workplace Adjustments Innovation of the Year’ Award’ and in 2018 Gold in the Business Disability Forum’s Disability Standard, and Bank Hapoalim of Israel recently announced a social impact programme whereby at least one person with a disability must be included in all of its media campaigns.
Similarly, Lloyds Banking Group has been awarded Gold in the Business Disability Forum’s Disability Standard and is recognised for its work to raise awareness of mental health. Since their partnership with Mental Health UK began in January 2017, over £9 million of vital funds has been raised so far through fundraising initiatives such as Walk-the-Talk.However, this is the first time in history that the world’s financial services sector has taken such a significant step towards ending the exclusion of disabled people.
The news comes after research from Inclusive Boards this week revealed that 90% of business leaders interviewed were apprehensive about employing a disabled person in a leadership position, with the cost of making the necessary adjustments for disabled people emerging as the primary reason for this apprehension. 41 percent of respondents felt that disabled people might take a lot of sick leave and 45 percent said their offices wouldn’t be accessible to those with disabilities
Founded by social entrepreneur and campaigner Caroline Casey, the launch of The Valuable 500 at Davos marked the first time disability inclusion was discussed on the main stage with the support of global business leaders – who included former Unilever CEO Paul Polman, Bloomberg Chairman Peter Grauer, and North American CEO at Accenture Julie Sweet. Since its launch, businesses such as Sainsbury’s, Microsoft, EY, Accenture, Fujitsu, Unilever, and Bloomberg have all joined he movement.
Its mission is to unlock the value of people living with disabilities across the world. 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.
The campaign is also aimed at ending ‘diversish’ attitudes towards disability in business (90% of companies say they’re inclusive but only 4% include disability in this definition). Research by EY and #valuable has found that 56% of global senior executives openly admitted to rarely or never discussing disability on their leadership agendas – proving disability to be woefully absent from the current business agenda.
The seven new members announced today will all join the effort to tackle the poor global employment rate for disabled people, which is currently stands at half of non-disabled people, a gap which has been on the rise since 2010.
To apply to be a Valuable 500 business, please use the contact form below.
Media contacts.
Sophie Currah, Seven Hills.
- Email: [email protected]
Richard Poston, Director of Communications, the Valuable 500.
- Email: [email protected]
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:
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Unlimited access to our executive disability performance resource hub.
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Membership to a community of like-minded business peer leaders, committed to raising their game on disability.
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The platform and opportunity to raise your profile as an early adopter helping to shape this vital emerging economic and societal agenda.
By becoming a member of The Valuable 500, you agree to:
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COMMIT: Table disability on your board agenda from 2019.
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ACT: Make ONE firm commitment to action in 2019.
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AMPLIFY: Share your commitment to The Valuable 500 internally and externally.
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.
About HSBC UK.
HSBC UK serves around 14.5 million customers across the UK, supported by 32,000 colleagues. HSBC UK offers a complete range of retail banking and wealth management to personal and private banking customers, as well as commercial banking for small to medium businesses and large corporates.
About RBS.
RBS is a UK-based banking and financial services company. It provides a wide range of products and services to personal, commercial and large corporate and institutional customers through a number of well-known banking brands, including NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank.
About Standard Chartered.
We are a leading international banking group, with a presence in 60 of the world’s most dynamic markets and serving clients in a further 85. Our purpose is to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, and our heritage and values are expressed in our brand promise, Here for good.
Standard Chartered PLC is listed on the London and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges as well as the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges in India.For more stories and expert opinions please visit Insights at sc.com.
About Monex.
Monex is a specialised financial services provider in the Mexican market with more than 34 years of experience providing banking and wealth management services. Monex is listed in the Mexican Stock Exchange. It also operates corporate FX and international payment solutions in the US, and in Europe through its subsidiary Monex Europe based in London.
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 disabled people to fully access the job market and guaranteeing equal and accessible education through the creation of inclusive environments.