PR89552

LONDON, May 18, 2021 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

Global business collective, The Valuable 500 ( https://www.thevaluable500.com/

), 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 (

https://www.tortoisemedia.com/disability100-report/ ) 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 500th

company, Apple has become the Iconic partner for Inclusive Design, helping to

drive the highest levels of inclusive design within and beyond the community.

SOURCE  The Valuable 500

CONTACT: valuable@wearesevenhills.com, +44 7825 952263