Business leaders pledge to include disability in sustainability efforts

GENEVA (ILO News) – Senior executives, including a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), from Accenture, AXA, Capgemini, Egis, Salesforce and Sanofi signed the Business Leaders’ Pledge on Disability-Inclusive Sustainability Practices put forward by the ILO Global Business and Disability Network. Thereby they are becoming the first companies to commit to increased efforts to make disability inclusion an integral part of their sustainability work, including their Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) efforts and reporting.

By signing the Pledge during the opening of the Network’s two-day “From Margin to Mainstream: Disability in Business” conference on Wednesday, Angela Beatty, Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer, Accenture; Frédéric de Courtois, Deputy CEO, AXA; Aiman Ezzat, CEO, Capgemini; Sabine Bonnard, Group Chief HR Officer, Egis; Margaret Johnston-Clarke, Global Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, L'Oréal; Suzanne DiBianca, Executive Vice President & Chief Impact Officer, Salesforce; and Audrey Duval, Executive Vice President Corporate Affairs, Sanofi committed their enterprises to “promoting the inclusion of persons with disabilities through the perspective of ESG and other sustainability frameworks”.

The Pledge demonstrates the growing importance of disability inclusion in corporate sustainability practices and reporting. 

To support the Pledge signatories and non-signatory companies worldwide, the Network published Putting the I in ESG: Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Sustainability Practices as Strategic Advantage for Corporates and Investors. This guide provides a framework for defining and reporting on corporate practices that make disability inclusion efforts more comprehensive. For each of the ten areas of this framework, between two and eight Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and existing corporate good practices are provided.

By offering a clear and structured approach to measuring disability inclusion, the guide enables the Pledge signatories and all other relevant stakeholders to set targets, track progress, identify gaps and drive meaningful outcomes for disability-inclusive, and thus sustainable economies. The proposed KPIs are aligned with the Network’s Self-Assessment Tool, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board standards, Global Reporting Initiative standards, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, ISO 26000, and The Valuable 500’s KPIs. This alignment ensures that disability-related metrics are not only consistent but also credible and comparable across industries and regions.