LONDON, May 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Global business collective, The Valuable 500^[1], announces it has reached its goal of 500 international organisations committing to put disability inclusion on their board agenda, making it the world's biggest CEO collective for disability inclusion.

Since The Valuable 500 was launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos in 2019, some of the most recognisable businesses from across the world have joined the campaign, including Allianz, Apple, BBC, BP, The Coca-Cola Company, Daimler, Deloitte, EY, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Nestle, P&G, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Prada, Shell, Sky, Sony, Twitter, Unilever, Virgin Media, Verizon and Vodafone.

The membership includes 36 of the FTSE 100 companies, 46 of the Fortune 500 and 28 of the Nikkei. The organisations supporting The Valuable 500 have a combined revenue of over $8 trillion and over 20 million employees across 36 countries, demonstrating the weight of the campaign's reach and influence.

This comes as new research^[2] from The Valuable 500 and Tortoise Media reveals that there are no executives or senior managers who have disclosed a disability in company reporting by the FTSE 100, while only 12% report on the total number of their employees who are disclosed as disabled.

While the new research shows stark findings on disability inclusion across the FTSE 100, it also indicates that this is set to change, with 16 out of the 100 companies having set credible targets related to representation of people with disabilities, and more set to put these in place.

All members of The Valuable 500 have made a public commitment to advancing disability inclusion within their organisations and positive change is already in action. Today The Valuable 500 has launched phase 2 of the campaign, which will activate the 500 major organisations to work together to make change happen for disability inclusion in business.

As part of this, 13 Iconic Leaders across The Valuable 500 will co-fund, co-build and co-test the programmes and solutions, using their industry experience to catalyse progress for the entire community. These leaders are Allianz, BBC, Deloitte, EY, Google, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., LSEG, Omnicom, P&G, Salesforce, Sony, Sky and Verizon. Joining these today as the 500^th company, Apple has become the Iconic partner for Inclusive Design, helping to drive the highest levels of inclusive design within and beyond the community.

References

1. ^{^} The Valuable 500 (www.thevaluable500.com)
2. ^{^} new research (www.tortoisemedia.com)