By Robin Sheppard, President, Bespoke Hotels: Let’s put the A into ESG.
If you like to mock the wokerati – and, let’s face it, our current leaders have opted for this as a substitute for anything resembling actual government – then calling for another letter to be added to a familiar abbreviation is a red rag to a bull. Undaunted, here I go. It’s time that ‘ESG’ became ‘ESAG’. It’s time to put the ‘Accessibility’ into ‘Environmental, Social and Governance’.
Around a quarter of the UK population have a disability, according to the definition used by the Disability Discrimination Act (Department for Work and Pensions’ Family Resources Survey). That’s 16 million people. Or – to put it even more starkly – there is, on average, a person with a disability in more than half of all UK households.
If we represent a quarter of the population – surely, we deserve to comprise one quarter of this abbreviation: ESAG.
Falling between the gaps
As things stand, accessibility falls, nominally, under ‘S’ for Social. The S covers ‘being a good employer’, ‘creating a safe/positive/inclusive culture’, ‘being a good citizen’, ‘supporting communities’ – broadly speaking, diversity, equity, and inclusivity.
Accessibility, it has to be acknowledged, is a complex matter. It requires forethought, commitment, and investment. In some ways, it’s not surprising that it is subject to so much tokenism – a ramp here, a larger font size on the website there. Making your business truly, genuinely accessible – to customers with seen and unseen disabilities, to employees with seen and unseen disabilities – is not an overnight fix. And that is precisely why it needs to be considered as a social responsibility in its own right.
Genuine visibility is needed
As someone who was lucky enough to be able-bodied for the larger part of my life, and unlucky enough to have my mobility severely compromised at a relatively young age, I have all the zeal of the newly-converted. They say you have to walk in someone’s shoes to truly understand their world view – well, try sitting in someone’s wheelchair if you really want to understand how inaccessible huge proportions of the world remain.
What I also learned in my years in a wheelchair, is that the sheer visibility of my disability did bring out many of my fellow human beings’ better traits – people are quick to help with doors, happy to stand aside on pavements. But, just as modern women don’t actually want gallant men to hold the door open for them, neither do wheelchair users want to be left dependent on the kindness of strangers and the efforts of the minority of businesses and organisations who truly ‘get’ accessibility.
And, of course, more importantly, there is so very much more to disability than the useful functioning of one’s legs. Sight, sound, comprehension, sensory divergences. The majority of the 24% of the UK’s population who have a functional disability, are non-apparent in most environments. And of these millions of people, it’s estimated that fewer than one in five benefit from any kind of specific accommodation in their workplace, which means that they will almost inevitably have to work harder than their counterparts to be as good at their job.
Purple Pound spending power
There is, of course, the positive side of all of this to businesses. The spending power of disabled people – and let’s not forget their friends and family – is increasingly quantified and recognised, with the charity Purple Tuesday doing sterling work in this regard.
According to Purple Tuesday’s research the total spending power of disabled people and their households is £274 billion per annum. They estimate that businesses lose approximately £2 billion a month by ignoring the needs of disabled people. And that the hospitality sector – already beleaguered by the series of catastrophes of post-Brexit recruitment and staffing, the pandemic, and rampant inflation – is, by not including disabled people, missing out on £163 million of sales every month.
Does that not merit a letter of its own in the ESG acronym? Let’s get the campaign going for companies to recognise their ESAG responsibilities. Let’s see comprehensive entries under ‘A’ for Accessibility in every business’ ESAG and corporate values statement.
We know that the E for environment is going to command the most attention, and rightly so. That affects 100% of humanity. But Accessibility – in our view – deserves equal billing with Social and Governance.
The rate of progress towards equality of access has certainly improved over the last few years. But it’s time to set aside any last excuses, accept the moral arguments as much as the commercial ones, and give Accessibility the billing it needs and deserves.
AI and Robotics helping people with disabilities into the hospitality and catering workplace
