Inclusion and Sustainability

Why Disability Inclusion is Key to Building Sustainable Companies

By Holly Klamer

In recent years, efforts to transform modern businesses into truly sustainable organizations have become increasingly widespread. At present, 50% of consumers consider sustainability to be a major value driver, with around 70% of modern workers claiming to prioritize working for companies that pursue environmentally sustainable and/or socially responsible initiatives. 

While the many factors driving this charge to a more sustainable future are often discussed, some wider actions and policies that help to form the foundations of sustainable companies are easily overlooked. Beyond headline-grabbing changes like utilizing sustainable materials and low-emission processes, much more goes into the building of sustainable organizations.

A brilliant example of this is the role that disability inclusion plays in the creation and success of green initiatives. Here's why disability inclusion is key to building sustainable companies.

What it means to be a sustainable company

To understand how efforts to improve disability inclusion can positively impact sustainability initiatives, we must first define what it means to be a sustainable company. In simple terms, organizations that develop dedicated strategies and actions designed to reduce the adverse environmental and social impacts of their operations are considered sustainable companies.

To be more specific, the sustainability and ethical impact of a company's operations can be measured in reference to 3 factors: Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) metrics.

• Environmental - This covers the impact a company's practices have on the natural world, including conservation, carbon reduction and environmental protection efforts.

• Social - This refers to how companies impact the lives of their employees and the wider community, including ethical practices and the way they treat their workforce.

• Governance - This involves the corporate structure of the business, including who is chosen to stand on board and how management staff choose to conduct themselves.

From these factors alone, we can already begin to see how disability inclusion can help to promote sustainability within businesses. For example, insights from disabled workers are key to the formation and analysis of ethical practices. For a company to ensure workers and community members are treated well, the opinions of marginalized groups must be heard.

This same concept applies to the governance of sustainable companies. The more disabled people a company chooses to hire in positions of authority, the greater the positive impact they can have in terms of creating and implementing socially responsible business initiatives.

The drive for inclusivity in modern business

The demand for sustainability and the drive for inclusivity are intrinsically linked. At the same time as companies are pivoting to more sustainable practices, many leaders are choosing to rethink their approach to building successful teams. By broadening the variety of candidates hired to work across all elements of a business, it's possible to develop more resilient teams.

The benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace are well-documented. For example, diverse companies have been shown to be 36% more profitable than their competitors, while diverse management teams have been shown to achieve 19% higher revenues. One reason for this is a greater ability to innovate in response to new ideas from less-heard perspectives.

With respect to disability inclusion in particular, companies that champion disability inclusion initiatives have been shown to earn almost 30% higher revenues than their peers. A likely contributor to this is that disabled citizens represent the third largest market segment in the US. Who better to develop successful products for this market than those that will use them?

But how does this relate to sustainability? One factor to consider is that disabled people are more likely to be severely impacted by things like climate change. Research shows disabled people are between 2-4x more likely to suffer serious injuries during events like heat-waves, hurricanes and floods. While non-disabled people might be more able to detach themselves from the realities of climate change, the same can't always be said for disabled citizens.

How disability inclusion supports sustainability

We can see how disability inclusion supports sustainability by viewing the hiring of disabled people through the lens of ESG metrics. As previously mentioned, ESG metrics demonstrate exactly how sustainable a company is. If the hiring of disabled people has a positive impact on these metrics, we can prove disability inclusion is key to building sustainable companies.

• Environmental - Disability inclusion provides companies an incentive to innovate in terms of built environments. To create more accessible environments, both for aging and disabled members of the community, novel, long-lasting and sustainable building practices must be learned and implemented, bringing benefits to wider communities.

• Social - For companies to develop effective safeguards and best practices designed to protect the labor force from unfair treatment, equal employment initiatives must be pursued. By hiring more people with disabilities, organizations can optimize existing health and safety, wellbeing and mental health provisions through actionable insights.

• Governance - To modernize and improve the operation of board and management practices, companies will need to consider efforts to improve the representation of marginalized and underrepresented groups at leadership level. Doing so helps teams to develop effective strategies for disability and diversity inclusion across businesses.

Hopes for the future

While the information covered in this post helps to demonstrate the crucial role that diversity and disability inclusion plays in the building of sustainable companies, much more work still needs to be done. Many companies continue to avoid measuring disability inclusion as a key performance indicator, leaving this information absent from discussions regarding objectives.

According to data published in 2021, no FTSE 100 companies employ executives or senior management staff who have disclosed a disability. However, a report released in 2023 found that 22% of Valuable 500 companies now publicly disclose workforce representation of disability figures. This suggests some significant changes are beginning to affect operations.

Related story: Do You Need to Disclose a Disability in a Job Interview?

Interestingly, reports reveal 78% of investors believe organizations should be pursuing more improvements relating to ESG metrics, of which disability inclusion is a key factor. The report goes on to claim that these investors believe such efforts to be more important than potential short-term financial losses. Hopefully, this stands as a good indication of changing attitudes.

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