 |
Omnicom is teaming up with Virgin Media in a partnership with #valuable, a campaign working to ensure businesses recognize the value of the one billion people around the world living with a disability.
Omnicom will work to spread the message of disability inclusion in business, as well as helping to start up a global discussion centered around the idea of a world in which everyone is valued equally. Virgin Media will encourage UK business leaders to join its push to create workplaces where disabled people can thrive. Virgin has also joined forces with Scope, an organization with the goal of permanently integrating a million people living with disabilities into the job market by the end of 2020.
“Omnicom is committed to elevating this issue to a priority place on its agenda and remaining an ally of this important movement,” said Janet Riccio, EVP of Omnicom Group and dean of Omnicom University, the company’s management development program.
#valuable is also working with the World Economic Forum, which announced that disability inclusion would be part of the agenda at its annual meeting from Jan. 22-25 in Davos, Switzerland.
 Caroline Casey |
The organization notes that one in seven people—15 percent of the world’s population—live with some form of disability. It also says that the current employment rate for those people is only half that of the general population.
In addition, the economic power of those with disabilities (a disposable annual income of $8 trillion) makes them a market that the business community cannot afford to ignore.
"Disability inclusion is an issue that has been pushed to the sidelines of business for far too long,” said #valuable founder Caroline Casey. “Momentum is now building, and we have reached a tipping point.”
Consumers continue to place a premium on corporate responsibility, but they increasingly want to see that responsibility directed toward issues that affect the bottom line, according to a new study from Mission North
Not all pressing issues require corporate voice! Brand stewards must must ask why and when their brands should engage, or if they need to engage on a particular issue at all.
Dollar General investors voted in support of a shareholder resolution at its May 31 annual meeting for an independent third party audit of “worker safety and well-being.”
Nonprofits and philanthropists have a unique opportunity to take ownership of conversations surrounding pressing social issues.
Have a comment? Send it to 
No comments have been submitted for this story yet.