Business and Disability: SUEZ signs Charter and joins the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Global Business and Disability Network

SUEZ remains firmly committed to the social inclusion of persons with disabilities. To this end, the Group has confirmed and reaffirmed its support by joining the ILO’s Global Business and Disability Network. Established in 2015, the Charter serves as a global reference for companies through its guidelines and initiatives. It aims to promote better professional integration for persons with disabilities who represent 15% percent of the global population or over a billion people.

SUEZ’s decision to join the Global Business and Disability Network is a show of steadfast commitment in a worldwide effort to fight discrimination and promote equal rights and opportunities for persons with disabilities. By becoming a Charter signatory, SUEZ confirms its ambition to promote and enforce the Charter’s ten principles across the Group by raising awareness for all employees.

Concretely, the signing of the charter strengthens SUEZ’s overall policy on social inclusion and diversity. It reflects the Group’s commitment to continue taking steps to move forward and to help to change perceptions of disability. The signature will foster better commitment in countries without statutory recruitment regulations. As such, it will facilitate, globalize and disseminate best practice and pilot initiatives that drive change.

The ILO’s Global Business and Disability Network was founded in 2010. The Network acts as a mediator and answers its members’ requests. Its role is to develop tools, share knowledge and encourage discussion centered on disabilities. Thanks to the network’s global platform, SUEZ will be able to work to make social inclusion in the workplace a reality for people of all abilities.

Guy Ryder, ILO Director-General, commented: “Employing persons with disabilities is not just a good moral cause, it is also good for business. By honoring the commitments of this Charter, the private sector will be showing real leadership in making it possible for persons with disabilities to have productive work and to live in dignity.”

The ten commitments of the ILO’s Business and Disability Charter:

1. Respect and promotion of rights: promote and respect the rights of persons with disabilities by raising awareness and combatting stigma and stereotypes faced by persons with disabilities.
2. Non-discrimination: develop policies and practices that protect persons with disabilities from all types of discrimination.
3. Equality of treatment and opportunities: promote equal treatment and equal opportunities for persons with disabilities by providing reasonable accommodation in the recruitment process, on-the-job, apprenticeships, training, job retention, career development and other relevant terms and conditions of employment.
4. Accessibility: progressively make the company premises and communication to staff accessible for all employees with disabilities.
5. Job retention: undertake appropriate measures to enable current employees who acquire a disability to retain or return to their employment.
6. Confidentiality: respect confidentiality of personal information regarding disability.
7. Attention to all types of disabilities: consider the needs of those persons with disabilities who face particular challenges accessing the labor market, including persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities.
8. Collaboration: promote employment of persons with disabilities among business partners and other companies and collaborate with national employer and business networks on disability as well as with organizations working to advance the rights of persons with disabilities.
9. Evaluation: review regularly the company disability inclusion policies and practices for their effectiveness.
10. Knowledge sharing: report on company efforts to promote the employment of persons with disabilities to all relevant stakeholders and share information and experiences with the members of the ILO Global Business and Disability Network.