RAW FILE

DISABILITY:IN
FEBRUARY 27, 2025

INCLUSION WORKS SEMI-ANNUAL VIRTUAL MEETING
SESSION 2
UNDERSTANDING EVOLVING CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITIES 
UNDER NEW EU DISABILITY INCLUSIVE LEGISLATION
10:30 AM ET

Services provided by:
        Caption First, Inc.
        P.O. Box 3066 
        Monument, CO 80132
        www.captionfirst.com 

This text, document, or file is based on live
transcription. Communication Access Realtime Translation 
(CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in 
order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be  
a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. This text, 
Document, or file is not to be distributed or used in any way
            that may violate copyright law.

(Recording in progress)

>> JO WATSON: Hello, and welcome, everyone, to Disability:IN's Inclusion Works meeting. This session is about understanding corporate responsibilities and the new EU Disability‑Inclusive Legislation. I am Jo Watson, Corporate Disability Inclusion, Disability:IN. I am here with fair hair and glasses. I am joined by two speakers, Reid Jewett Smith, PhD., Vice President, Research and Policy, Disability:IN, and Beth Wiesendanger, Sr. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, at Etsy.
I am also going to ask them to introduce themselves in a moment.
Before we begin, though, I will run through a quick PowerPoint with a little bit of Housekeeping, so if you can move onto the next slide, please, Maria.
As an attendee, you are in interview‑only mode. You can watch and listen to the presentation, but you cannot share audio or video. If you have a question, feel free to submit it to our panel in the Q&A Box at any time.
Today we are combining roles. I am going to be facilitator and Moderator. I will do my best to address at many questions as possible toward the end for Q&A, so, please do keep them coming, and we will get through as many of them as we can.
ASL and Live Captioning are both being provided during today's Webinar. To start viewing the captioning, select CC, or the Closed Caption button in the meeting controls. You can move it or drag it to a position that suits you.
We will also post a StreamText link in the Chat Box that you can use to view the captions in other languages. The link is also available in the meeting materials you were sent with the Agenda, so you can access it there, as well.
Our ASL Interpreter video will be Spotlighted for the duration of the Webinar. If you would like to change the gallery or speaker view, please use the view button at the top right of your Zoom window.
The session is being recorded. All registered attendees will receive the record links with follow‑up email after the event and all the recordings will be in the Inclusion Works Library. If you have questions, feel free to reach out to me directly or by email.
And now, if we are ready, we will kick our session off. I would like to move to the panel introductions.
So, Reid and Beth, I will ask you to introduce yourselves to the audience, sharing anything relevant to the panel and your commitment to Disability Inclusion, Beth, we will start with you.
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: I am Beth, and my pronouns are she/her. I am a while woman with long blond hair wearing black glasses and a black shirt.
I am really excited to be here today. I lead Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Etsy and am responsible for leading the Disability Index process both in the United States and the UK.
At Etsy we also oversee Deepak, a U.K.‑based company, and work with their teams to complete the Disability Index both in 2024 and now in 2025. This is the first year that Etsy completed the CSRD, and I participated as a Task Force Member in that work.
I am a member of the Disability Community myself, a double amputee and a prosthetic user.
I have been involved in the Disability space for many, many years.
I started my career in a non‑profit sector as a community organizer and advocate, then I transitioned into Human Resources for quite a few years before focusing in on Disability, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility for the past couple of years, so I am very happy to be here today with you all.
>> JO WATSON: Thank you very much, Beth, for that intro. Reid?
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: Beth, that is an awesome intro. I think we have really cool, complimentary perspectives here. I am Reid Jewett Smith, an American female coming to you today from Upstate New York. I have the incredible pleasure of being the Vice President of Research and Policy here at Disability:IN where I have dedicated the better part of the last year to understanding these new, evolving Corporate Responsibilities under iDisability‑Inclusive Legislation.
I am very excited to unpack it with you today and hear Beth's firsthand experience.
I come to the Disability Community by way of a medical experience I have my whole life. I have a disease called Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic and degenerative lung disease that also affect as lot of other major organs. I have lived a lot of my life in and out of inpatient care. I spent a big chunk of my career in the classroom designing my career around my disability, not realizing there were so many awesome Workplaces that were dedicated to doing the opposite, bringing People with Disabilities in and helping work around their strengths and making room for their lives.
So, I am super excited to be here today to look at the leadership coming out of the EU Legislation to make Workplaces even more inclusive and accessible.
So, I am psyched to be here today! Thank you, Jo. Excited to kick it off!
>> JO WATSON: Okay. That is great. Thank you, Reid.
Let's dive in, then. I know there will be a lot of interesting conversation today. Reid, I will stay with you, if that is okay.
Let's start if you can share an overview with our audience about how EFRAG, the central body ‑‑ we will explain who they are in a second ‑‑ went about incorporating disability into the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, and then perhaps talk a little about how those Standards cover Persons with Disabilities.
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: I would love to. I want to backtrack, first, a little bit.
There was a really significant deadline last night regarding the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which we are here to discuss how it affects disability, but there is actually a very important update that has broken in the last 24‑hours.
But first, I can't help myself from making a joke about how we named this session months ago involving the understanding of the evolving Corporate Responsibilities that companies around the world have to comply with, and boy was that an impressionist title. We are taking it day‑by‑day with the rapidly evolving Regulatory Frameworks and sort of shifting landscape that really keeps us on our toes in terms of what is allowed, encouraged and required.
The EU threw us another curveball last night with another decision coming out of the Commission that affects the scope, and the timing of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
So, Beth, I feel like that makes your perspective even that much more valuable. You have gone through this, and you can give so many people a heads‑up, even though they might have a little more breathing room now in terms of Compliance.
But I want to first step back and sort of ground this conversation in the work that Disability:IN's Policy Team has been doing over the course of the last year in looking at three big directives.
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which we will focus on this morning, and Beth's expertise is testament to.
We will also look a little at the European Accessibility Act, and now on the fence, Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.
So, to wrap our minds around all this and everything I share with you today comes from a relationship that we built with the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group that wrote these Standards that are changing corporate behavior.
What we found is that this new set of environments is creating this really robust framework for companies to think about Disability Inclusion in the Workforce, in the value‑chain, and even on the Corporate Boards.
This is bolstered by a very strong foundational environment in the EU where there are very strong anti‑discrimination protections for People with Disabilities in the Workplace, and a widespread network of government practices that create employment mandates in a lot of the EU countries.
So, really strong foundations here. What we will look at is how these new legislation came together. But before that, I want to throw up a flag that there was a big decision last night coming out of the European Commission about the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
There has been a bit of pushback to this robust framework that includes other dimensions of social reporting, of environmental due diligence, in the name of regional competitiveness, how do we keep the European economies growing and hyper‑competitive, and how do we simplify some of the administrative difficulties ‑‑ Beth, you will like this ‑‑ of all of these different reporting frameworks layered on top of one another.
So, to both preserve competitiveness and chip away at the Simplification of Sustainability, all in alignment with the European renewed deal, the emphasis on elevating Sustainability to the level of financial importance in assessing a company, there have been some shifts in the way the Reporting Directive will get implemented.
So, we used to see this as in corporate covering a huge number of companies, some 50,000 companies in the next couple of years. There has been a pretty significant shrinking in scope that the primary factor will be listed entities that have over 500 employees in the EU, or, sort of small and medium Enterprises with over 1,000 employees.
So, for the purpose of our community and conversation, that is not a huge shift. Because all the companies that are part of our Inclusion Works have a sizable footprint and tackling Accessibility in a strategy ICC way so you are in a good position to come into Compliance when the time comes, but there is also delays in the implementation.
So, it will really be 2028, Fiscal Year 2027 when this really comes to the floor. So, Beth, you will have an incredible leg‑up and I am so excited to hear your experience here.
If we think about the Reporting Directive, and what it actually asks companies to do differently, the answer is that it asks them to talk about disability, to sort of substantiate what they are doing, to incorporate People with Disabilities in the Workforce.
This shows up in three key areas. One is in your own Workforce. One is in your Value Chain, whether it is the supplier, and consumer and end‑user, and the other is in the Governance body and Governance frameworks.
So, the Workforce dimension in terms of Inclusion Works is the most important piece.
So, let's look at what you have to talk and show about disability? There are a couple different pieces. You have to share policies that you have in your Workplace that are related to your own Workforce, and including People with Disabilities in your Workforce.
You have to show what process you have for engaging with People with Disabilities in your own Workforce. A great example would be an ERG. How you create feedback with your ERG to show that you are eliciting that input. You have to demonstrate you have social protections and safety‑nets for Persons with Disabilities that become disabled in the course of work.
You have to quantify and show the number of People with Disabilities in your own Workforce. You have to have quantitative data, whether it a certified status or Self‑ID Campaign showing here is the percentage and where it stands.
Many companies are doing patchwork quotas but now there are really numbers.
And you have to show complaints and easier Human Rights impacts regarding disability in your Workforce.
So, that is your own Workforce. How are you talking about you're on people?
There are two other dimensions where we go into the Supply Chain and look at how the prime suppliers are engaging with People with Disabilities in their own Workforce, and the impacts that might expose them to.
Then go to the consumer and the end‑user dimension, which is, how are you creating targets for your consumers, for your end‑users, to have accessible and inclusive products?
So, it is, again, a comprehensive way of thinking of your own operations, your end‑users, your suppliers, and actually, your Governance, too.
Companies that report on disability also have the option to break down their government and Supervisory bodies on the basis of disability, too, where they with show the gendered competition of the Corporate Board, Partner Structure and Senior Leadership as well as disability, so an exciting frontier there.
Again, rapidly evolving situation, but we have very good intel on what we think it will look like, although some of the timelines and scope are going to be shifting in the coming days.
So, I hope that is a helpful stage‑setting.
>> JO WATSON: It really was. Thank you, Reid. And I know we covered a lot, but we do have a ton of resources available on this topic, already, all of which is still valid.
As I said, we will be keeping you all up‑to‑date with things as they emerge and evolve over the coming months, updating timelines and so on.
So, speaking of implementation, then, the reality of having to report, let's learn a little bit from Etsy and how you handle that.
So, Beth, maybe we can understand a little bit about your approach that you took in reporting for CSRD for the first time this year, any key takeaways from what you went through.
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: Thank you. That was a super helpful overview, first of all, so thank you for sharing that.
You know, Etsy for a long time has participated in what we call integrated reporting. Our ESG reporting has been integrated on how we report on an annual basis.
There are a lot of similarities in doing that kind of reporting, that kind of Annual Reporting, and really how we approach the CSRD.
The biggest take‑away I have from this process, and other processes, is really how important it is to, one, know who your key stakeholders are in this work, and, two, to really form good, solid relationships of trust with those stakeholders across your organization.
So, this type of reporting really requires a large and coordinated cross‑functional effort. You or your reporting lead, whoever that is, they can't be the expert in all the areas of the CSRD by yourselves.
So, you are going to need support from ESG topic experts. Thav that can look like maybe an HR or DI expert, or Sustainability Manager for environmental matters, or your Legal Team. The concepts of the ESG in particular, the legal framework of the CSRV are relatively new, quite complex, and there is a learning curve for everybody involved.
So the additional subject matter expertise allows for diverse perspectives and an end‑result overall.
In thinking about managing stakeholders, now we are in this place where these changes are proposed ‑‑ Reid, correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a little review process. We are not 100% sure these changes will be adopted so our internal guidance has been we are ahead of this, but let's keep ahead of it and committed to all the things we are doing, because we don't know if all the Simplification will happen.
As a first step, the Manager stakeholder process is something you can start now, very ahead of time, to set yourself up for success.
So, the first thing I would do is create a stakeholder map. Begin by defining the key stakeholder categories you will need to complete your audit and CSRD, suppliers, employees, customers, et cetera, in terms of categories.
Then from each category, you will want to identify a representative that can speak to your company. Second, you will need to decide how to engage with stakeholders. I have seen a lot of companies do things like surveys, but I would actually suggest one‑on‑one meetings and interviews with all your cross functional stakeholders.
For two reasons. One, you will really get more detailed and informed responses. And, two, you will build trust with the core partners you will need to get this work done.
Then when you do have the one‑on‑one, use that time to brief your stakeholders on the importance of the CSRD, and its alignment with your company goals. So, the "what" it is, why you are doing it, and how their role really contributes to the work of getting this done.
Just reading about the CSRD can feel very overwhelming, and the language is quite dense. So, by breaking this down for your stakeholders, it will make it really clear what they need to contribute, and how that will end in a final result.
And then, finally, keep your stakeholders in the loop to really foster those strong relationships. So, keep them inform about how things are going, how their input is being used, share the final report when upon possible, and really allow folks to see how their contributions fit into the broader project.
So, that is really the biggest takeaways the stakeholder management piece is really the largest, most complex part of this work.
So, the sooner you can identify those stakeholders, build those relationships, and start to foster those conversations, the better you are going to be in the long‑term.
>> JO WATSON: That is great. What a comprehensive answer. I do have an estimate of how much time you allocated to this. So, in other words, how far in advance did you start the stakeholder mapping, and then the one‑on‑one meetings? How much time did you allow?
Also the data gathering, the review processes and so on. Could you break that town for us?
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: Yes. Honestly, several months. The reason being, we are all just very busy people doing our regular jobs in addition to doing this kind of reporting.
So, one, if you don't have a Project Lead who is kind of dedicated to the project managing this work, I would say that is first step, identifying who that person is.
Then really baking in additional timelines into every step.
I would say if you have ‑‑ Etsy sort of has a leg up, so to speak, in the sense that we have been doing integrated reporting for a long time. We sort of have an idea of who our impact stakeholders are, the folks we know on the Compliance Team, the Legal Team, the Audit Team, the folks we know we need to get information from.
So, because we have had that Task Force defined, ultimately it took less time for us to actually execute on the report.
I would say, in general, it probably took each stakeholder around, like, four or five hours of work to complete, which is actually not really a lot in the scheme of things.
But that is because a lot of that groundwork and relationship‑building have been done over time. If you haven't identified those stakeholders yet, if you need to build those relationships, I would, again, if you are thinking about doing this next year, start building those relationships now.
Start thinking about how you are talking about the CSRD with your stakeholders now, so when you get to the time where you are actually collecting data, and it is time to collect that data, it is not a huge time requirement for a stakeholder involved.
They sort of know what the project is, what they are going to dedicate. You are not explaining to them, you know, the basics. So, I would say, give yourself several months to really start to build those relationships.
>> JO WATSON: Yeah. That is a great tip. Thank you.
As you went through the process, did you find you had gaps in the data? Stuff you didn't know, hadn't been asked before, had to figure out where to get it?
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: Yes. And I think really the mark of any good benchmark is that it probes you in those directions. That is why I think it is so important that if you haven't done this work, you really bake in that extra time, because there likely will be questions you see that you have to kind of dig a little deeper, and get information for.
Especially with some of the Supply Chain impact questions, and really understanding your vendors, their impact, and understanding the second and third tier impact that your Supply Chain has.
So, build extra time into the process to give yourself grace. Don't think it is something you can get done in a few weeks time. This is a long project, so make sure you have those big milestones, mini milestones, and you are, again, involving stakeholders as early as possible. Because inevitably you will run into something that the person doesn't have an easy recall of that particular Dataset.
>> JO WATSON: Yes, yes. Perfect.
And you touched on this a little bit, and I will give you a little break in a second. You touched on this a little bit already in terms of having some of the infrastructure set up broadly, which helped you to prepare. What were some of the other things that you would call out, that was helpful as you worked through the process?
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: Yeah. I would say the Disability Index was a really wonderful tool for engaging Stakeholder Management and the ways I outlined it. Like the CSRD, when you are answering questions and gathering data from multiple cross‑functional categories from the business, you need to build out the stakeholder map, get the buy‑in and collaborate with the experts to align on the responses.
I would say it has also been helpful, as we navigated multiple Benchmarking Tools and Annual Reports as a company to identify where there is overlap between reporting, and have a really centralized system where all reporting takes place, so we are not doing duplicate work.
A lot of these reports build on one another. There is always a percentage of each report that is unique to that report, but a lot of the things we are doing across reports actual will do relate to one another.
So, really understanding with that overlap is. We use a tool called Workiva that accounts the finance materials, audibility and all these things. This system helps us track everything in one place. All the stakeholders can communicate, make edits in one system. I would really recommend investing in a tool like this the reporting is part of your annual processes.
And, again, I want to reinforce that a big learning from these experiences is to always bake in extra time. It seems like a really simple thing to say, but it truly, truly helps when you are working across multiple functions in various organizational stakeholders, to just assume that you are not going to meet the first deadline that you give people.
As an organizer or Project Leader, baking in that extra time to account for missed deadlines. You know, it happens. We are all busy people.
Give folks grace and really plan for those deadline misses.
>> JO WATSON: That is great. Thank you.
All right. Switching to Reid, then. Beth mentioned the Disability Index as being a helpful tool in pulling together the CSRD data and reporting. As Corporate Partners are expanding and reporting. So, maybe Reid you can report on the future of Disability:IN?
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: I have to say, first of all, Beth, it is so heartwarming to hear the Index helps you build that muscle memory and connects those pathways so the information can be exchanged in the right places and right timeline. That is so cool to hear. That is exactly what it is designed to do.
I also want to compliment ‑‑ it is really cool hearing you say, no, we are full steam ahead. A, this is a reflections of value alignment of where we want to be going. And, B, we don't know the uncertainty. If there is one thing we know, it is the uncertainty of the evolving climates environment. That is so smart.
Yeah, Jo, you are right. The Index is headed in really cool places. I am excited because we had the opportunity to kind of work on the back end. Given what we thought about the reporting requirements in Europe, about the future and the direction of where Sustainability Reporting is going in terms of creating greater consolidation, greater mapping, reducing the administrative burdens, we have been asking ourselves, how can we make the Index speak more globally. How can we make it speak to accompanied headquartered anywhere in the world? How can we make it more interoperable with the frameworks to do an even better job of creating that alignment for companies like all of you?
So, we made some really exciting changes to the Index we will be rolling out over the next 12‑months. The top line is universalization. We have set about a process across all the same stakeholder groups you mentioned with legal, with people from all over the world, with practitioners, to say, what is a universal question‑set look like? How do we take the incredible substance and content of the Disability Index, organized across those four categories, and how do we ask those questions in a policy‑agnostic fashion, so the question appears the same, and the intent and the meaning holds across geographical context and policy context.
So, we have a new simplified and universalized question‑set. We have also reduced the sort of survey volume to create a much better question logic.
We are reducing it to about 75 core questions that are now going to be binary, yes‑no answers. They will be sort of no shades of gray in the middle. We are going to ask few yes‑no questions. We are only asking for publicly variable hyperlinks. We are eliminating the additional upload pieces.
The again, this is so companies headquartered anywhere in world can take this sort of self‑evaluation and understand how they stack up.
Also with the chain in the question‑set and binary scoring, this is leading us to think about scoring a little differently. Rather than emphasizing achievement, being done and arriving, we are now emphasizing progress and creating a progression, or proficiency framework for to you Interpreter a raw score.
As part of this, we are also adding some sort of new dimensions to the Index in terms of discretion, so your score can be an internal piece, it can be an external piece, and creating recognition for the leading proficiencies that correspond with answering a fast majority of questions on the Index.
So, we are really excited to start rolling out. But the headline for the purposes of this conversation is we are moving toward a universal Index, so that companies can take it, you know, for the entirety of their operations. You can take it, like Beth said, you have a support‑brand in the UK. You can take an Etsy survey, and as a separate entity ‑‑ you have a lot of flexibility in terms of what you benchmark to create more geographical flexibility.
One of the really exciting things for the purpose of this conversation is the Disability Index also allows you to do all of that stakeholder due diligence and mapping for CSRD, and actually, of the nine different standards about disability, eight of them are already baked into the question‑set in the Index.
So, we are working toward really strong, kind of interoperability there in terms of how, like you said, it helps you do your homework. It helps you get ready and map the landscape, so, super, super excited there. Yeah.
>> JO WATSON: Thank you, Reid. Very comprehensive.
So, on that note then, to Beth. When you think about your commitment to the reporting and the action that you are taking and the approach you are moving forward with, that indicates to me that this continues to be a priority.
Would you say that disability has always been a strategic priority for Etsy, or have the regulations sort of shifted your company more in that direction? Are they a driver, or are they more of a response in terms of your approach?
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: I would say certainly Disability Inclusion has been a priority for us the past few years. We have had a headstart, and it comes to regulatory Compliance.
In 2022 that was our first year participating in the Disability Index. And we really saw that as an opportunity to understand where we were in order to build a map of where we wanted to go.
In general, this is the beauty of a benchmark process to me. Really, benchmarks are at their best when they can be used as a tool for change and innovation, and really drive a strategy. That is exactly how we used the Index that first year.
We built a roadmap that included many investments across the business. And we also recognized, you know, how important it was to expand our demographic reporting to include disability status for two reasons.
The first is to have a more holistic understanding of the Workforce and people. If the disabled Workforce feel safe to Self‑ID, we see that as a signal that we are creating culture of psychological safety for folks with disabilities.
So, that is what we did. We updated the Self‑ID fields to ask about disability, we did an internal Self‑ID Campaign, and we have been reporting on disability status in our Annual Reporting now for a couple of years, so that has really set us up for success when it comes to the regulatory Compliance.
When we started our journey, we had about 1% of employees in Etsy in the UK and US that identified as disabled and by 2024 we had about 20% of employees that Self‑IDed as disabled in the US‑and UK. That is produce progress.
So we really use the Disability Index as a tool to be proactive about the standard, acknowledging there is plenty more work to do, even though we scored as 100 on the Index the past couple of years.
Through those advancements we have made, we have mapped the subsidiary and that has allowed us to have a proactive approach to Disability Inclusion, so as Compliance and Regulations are coming through, we are finding a lot of the information they are asking about that maybe two or three answers we would not have an answer for, we do now. And not just an answer, but a thoughtful answer.
For the areas we still have room to improve, the benchmarking really helps us with the Roadmap of how to do that and get where we need to go.
>> JO WATSON: That is great. Thank you. That is tremendous there that you show there every couple years. I have a feeling we may get you back on one of our Self‑ID Panels.
So, Reid, back to you and circling back to where we started this conversation. I know there is a lot of interest in what you were saying about how things are evolving in the last 24‑hours. With all that uncertainty and evolution, is there anything solid that companies can kind of hold on to or hang on to that is the providing a degree of certainty?
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: Well, I love Beth's answer. With uncertainty as like the known thing, that we can still move forward with some of these frameworks and initiatives bass they still meet our internal goals.
And for large company, you are right, with large companies you know it is only a matter of time so smart to get ahead.
And with the piece there is thinking of Accessibility Legislation. There is no large pushback to the European Accessibility Act the way there has been with reporting pieces. The European Accessibility Act which goes into effect this year, in three or four months, in June of this year, on the 28th, the Accessibility Act requires all new products and services that are marketed, distributed or offered in the European Union to meet minimum Usability Standards for Accessibility.
So, this applies to a wide range of things that affect Workplaces and offices, like computers, Hardware and Software, and, you know, physical spaces, but it always applies to computer‑facing projects like kiosks, ticketing machines and some dimensions of transportation and certainly wireless devices, captioning on television shows and TV.
The Accessibility Legislation sort of rounds this out, because it is critical. It is something we can count on. We all know that the European Accessibility Act, which has been introduced and socialized in legislation over the past five years, is going into affect in June of 2025.
So, that is something that companies can and must count on as they are strategizing, and then ultimately that will come full circle as you are thinking about your own Workforce and what policies you have to comply with things like the Reporting Directive, or the interactions with your users and consumers.
So, over the duration of the decade, any new products and services introduced in the EU Market, even if your company is not based in the EU, must meet the Accessibility thresholds and standards.
And then you have a grace period with which to retrofit or redesign existing or Legacy products on the market.
So, the Accessibility Act is something that we profiled side‑by‑side with the Reporting Directive, so we can really have them speak to each other.
But you know, it is an essential piece of the Regulatory Framework in the EU that is going to dictate the way the companies offer products and services in the market.
That is something that is a, you know, a known quantity. So, back to you.
>> JO WATSON: Thank you. I will take a question that came into the Q&A earlier.
I believe somebody was asking, with the context that you gave at the beginning about how the CSRD reporting requirements are changing, how the EU is looking at those in terms of either the timelines or scope of the companies included or not included, I think this person was asking about, how do we find out more about it? Where do we go to get more information about what some of those changes are as they happen? What would you advise in that case?
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: I have been following the Press Releases from the European Commission that are coming directly from the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group is doing some interpretation, but the European Commission directly has sort of a press corner. I would be happy to circulate ‑‑ we can do that in the aftermath of this, to basically follow along with the Press Releases from the European Commission.
It is also getting coverage in all major business news outlets, but again, very much day‑by‑day.
You know, again, I think ‑‑ Beth, do you have any other good sources?
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: I would say that is probably the most realtime trustworthy source that you can go to.
>> JO WATSON: And obviously we are here to help you. So, we are taking all this information in, we are processing it, and looking at what does it mean, and we will be having conversations like this throughout the year as those things become clearer, so stay in touch.
One of the benefits of being part of the Inclusion Works program is you have access to all those conversations.
Okay. A quick time check. We have a few minutes left before we go to Q&A.
And if you do have a question, pop those in the Q&A Box. But maybe we can wrap up with a couple sentences from each of you about why we think these requirements, this legislation, is so important? Why is it important to include People with Disabilities in business and business regulations?
Maybe Beth, you can give your perspective first, and then I will go to Reid.
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: Yeah. I would say because if you don't, you are ignoring the reality that a large percent of your Workforce and your customer‑base are disabled. If the goal of any good business is to serve your consumer base in your community, you are simply failing on that mission, if your strategy doesn't take disabled people into consideration.
I would say that while there is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of change, things might ‑‑ certain requirements might change ‑‑ Reid, as you said, the writing is on the wall. Progress is progress. And though there are entities and people who may try to slow the progress, progress still happens.
So, you can either prepare now for the future of your Workforce, and the future of work, or you will have to play catch‑up later.
I think having a proactive, thoughtful, strategic approach, is always a better business decision.
>> JORDAN KRUG: Thank you. Reid, anything to add?
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: I would say, Beth, I agree with the sort of moral impetus, urgency, responsibility and proportional representation arguments that we are familiar with. It is a billion people worldwide. That is obviously a massive consumer segment.
But I would back that up by saying in addition to that, another critical dimension to that, the mounting evidence of what this does for a business' bottom line, our sort of whole world at the Disability:IN policy side here is finding new and different ways to quantify the business case.
To think about it as having so many different dimensions. There is a dimension around Accessibility, both physical and digital, and why that is a business advantage for all people, right?
We can think about it in terms of the bottom line financial performance and returns. We have evidence that the top‑performing inclusive companies see better Shareholder returns. They see greater productivity in their Workforce. So, there is a bottom line financial performance dimension.
You said it best. There is a consumer dimension, right? The disposable income of the sort of collective community of People with Disabilities is tremendous. Especially when we think about the 101 million Europeans who are People with Disabilities, right?
That is a really sizable piece. So, I think the ways that we can sort of look to the business case is to substantiate why this is essential for the business bottom line for Shareholder returns for Workforce Engagement, productivity, all those different metrics, is just a really resounding reinforcement.
Actually, we have pulled together, again, in light of the legislative uncertainty we are facing in so many pockets of the world, a really kind of easy to access, easy to read lit review, the core case, pieces of Disability Inclusion and pulling out good data there. So, I will make sure we can share that somehow with all of you so you can get straight to that, as well.
>> JO WATSON: Yes. That was announced this morning. And it is available from today. So, yeah, we will make sure we are able to distribute that.
Okay, so let's move to Q&A received from the audience. We received a couple with that Global context, which there appear to be different push‑pull mechanisms in different markets. A lot of our company does have a global footprint, so I will ask you, specifically, Beth in a second, how you managed that thought as you think about navigating multiple GOs.
But Reid, maybe first, staying with you, any advice for Global Organizations, thinking about what can appear to be conflicting regulations on reporting, in different markets, how we might look at a the wider context, and any advice you might give?
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: Yeah, I mean, Beth will have great intel on this, too. It is wildly complex, so this is a great question. You have conflicting regulations, and 27 different definitions of disability in the EU Member States, under one umbrella, a mandate to collect information against those different definitions.
Then if you have a presence in the US, you also have a whole different set of regulatory constraints.
So, how is it you are collecting sort of like a single, unified interpretation or DataPoint against that. The solution we keep coming to and hearing and working with all our Inclusion Works company in taking up a Global Self‑Identification Campaign, the way you navigate these legal constraints, requirements and definitions is by choosing sort of a single definition that sits above the national definitions, the one that we often see is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 
That brings together a definition that both acknowledges and upholds the physical and empirical dimensions of disability and mental health together with the societal barriers that people face together in the Workplace in society.
Whether you come from a disability from a more medical perspective or identarian one, you see yourself in a broad definition, and the way you collect information against that without violating the various frameworks is collecting data after the interview phase with an anonymous third‑party survey that allows you to sort of reduce the liability of having that individual, sort of, personally identifiable information.
So, I would also put out a call to anybody on the other end of this Webinar that says, if you are having, you know, experiences like navigating this, we would love to be in touch with you, and learn from you, because that is really our best way of creating Best Practices, and disseminating that out to our Inclusion Works families, if you have an experience that leads you to sort of develop a set of conventions or ideas about how to promote Global Self‑ID, we would love to hear that from you.
But yes, incredibly complex. (Chuckles)
>> JO WATSON: Yeah, yeah.
>> BETH WIESENDANGER: Yes, it is complex. I would say that having a unified Data Management Strategy is really helpful. What I mean by that is, sort of identifying the most stringent requirements and regulations and utilizing that the way you collect prioritization.
The nice thing about using data as a tool is it is self‑management. You are not pulling records without people being aware they self‑identified into this category. It is not like a GDPR Compliance issue or HIPAA Compliance issue. So, really have a standardized Data Management approach and standard that will require you to, again, the Stakeholder Management people, the Legal Team, Management Team, make sure you have legal experts if you don't have them in‑house, consulting with each of the countries your business operates in, for example the US and UK, in this scenario, and really making sure you understand what the most stringent policies are, and kind of setting that standard across the business for how you collect and manage data.
That will help you in the long run. But it is quite complex. It is not something that I as a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion professional would do on any own without legal input. My Legal Team is my best friend at this time in the US and abroad, so, really make sure you have good relationships with your team, and they understand the "why" behind, and that will set you up for success when you do your Self‑ID Campaign from how you are collecting the data.
But also, the language you are using to ask people to self‑identify.
>> JO WATSON: Yes. Okay. That is great. Thank you. All right. Pivoting topics then. Going back to the European Accessibility Act, Reid, there is a question here about how a company can assess whether they are in‑scope for the Accessibility Act, and any resources we can point them to to help them with that?
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: Yeah. Absolutely. I will put in the Chat a link to the paper that Disability:IN and White & Case reduced this year that lays out very specifically the terms and scope of the European Accessibility Act and the CSRD and DDD.
What I would say at a quick answer at a high level, it is actually not companies that have to determine whether they are in‑scope, but it is products and services. 
So, if your company is manufacturing consumer‑facing products and services, like cell phones, or if you are a Professor of television services, or you operate kiosks and you are a coffee shop that has retail‑facing point of sale devices, it is really an inventory of the type of technology that you use, and the products and services that you are responsible for either distributing, manufacturing or importing.
It is really more of the device and user‑end experience that you analyze how those show up in your business model, then look at where the Compliance Requirements are setting in.
There are basically guardrails, kind of whether you are, like sort of the consumer end‑person or not, the consumer end, and distributors, manufacturers and importers.
So, even if you are manufacturing something in a totally different part of the world, but you intend to market, sell and ready those products for use in the European Market, you need to be thinking about these.
So, that is one of the incredible pieces, is that all three pieces of this new EU Legislation carry this principle of extra territoriality. They don't just apply to you if you are listed in the EU Market that they apply to you everywhere in the world if you want access to the European Market.
So, again, the unit of study there is not the size of the business, the location of the business, the turnover, but it is the products and services that you use, and the way in which you use them in the connections with consumers.
Yes. This does apply to entertainment, like video games, films, television, streaming services, in terms of needing to be robust, understandable and operable to Persons with Disabilities.
For all new products starting in 2025, and then, again, there is a grace period with which to sort of grandfather in and really address existing Legacy products.
>> JO WATSON: Right. Yeah. Okay. So, we have four minutes for any more questions to come in. While we are wrapping up here, if you have any burning ones.
The other thing I would add to what Reid said is to reinforce your partnership with us. You get access to all these great subject materials we are talking about today. It is not just a one‑and‑done. You can ask us anything at any point and your Consultant will navigate you to an answer as best we can, so keep that dialogue going.
Of course, as we mentioned earlier on in the opening session, we have a series of Global Efforts happening this year, where we will be talking more about this.
So, we are going on a tour of the EU in May. And Reid will be with us visiting five cities, and talking about these reporting requirements, as well as going deep on Accessibility, as well, so there will be plenty of opportunities to engage with your peers on this, but also engage in‑person with us.
So, if you haven't heard about those and you are a Consultant, make sure you look into that. I encourage you to, if you have a footprint in any of the cities we are visiting, I encourage you to register for those.
So, I would like to wrap this up then by saying thank you to Reid and Beth for sharing their expertise in our session today, and a special thanks to our Sign Language Interpreters and the Captioner.
And a big thank you to the audience for joining us today, as well as the other people behind the scenes that helped put this together.
And I would encourage you to dive into some of the other sessions happening a bit later.
So, the next one is around the future of Supplier Inclusion, standards for increasing visibility representation in Global Supply Chains from 11:45 AM Eastern time. And you will be able to find the link to that on the confirmation email.
We really enjoyed our time with you today. Again, thank you, a lot, for all your Engagement, and have a great rest of your day! Thank you, everyone.
>> REID JEWETT SMITH: Thank you, everybody.
 
       (Session was concluded at 11:22 AM ET)
                                                       
This text, document, or file is based on live
transcription. Communication Access Realtime Translation 
(CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in 
order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a 
totally verbatim record of the proceedings. This text, 
Document, or file is not to be distributed or used in any way 
That may violate copyright law.