We’ve heard it many times: “ESG is at the heart of our culture”, “ESG is part of our DNA”. And for sure it is, or at least a lot of people in business are putting their efforts in achieving this goal. But still the topic is complicated, and many employees only understand 2-3 elements of the multitude of ESG.
ESG has been broadly brought into the public discourse, still lots of its elements remain obscured. Focus is predominantly on CO2 emissions, recycling, EV and gender equality… but is there something more to it?
One of the hot topics nowadays is Accessibility! And the European Accessibility Act, coming in 2025, will make it even hotter. In a nutshell, it means that if you want to have compliant business operations you will need to secure digital accessibility: people with different kinds of disabilities should feel comfortable when landing on your web content. Visually impaired people should be able to navigate your web-shop and check out successfully; people with hearing loss should be able to understand your videos, etc. …You get the idea. And, we need to say, the idea is good and right.
But what’s next for businesses? First of all – get yourself educated! If ESG is really at the heart of your business strategy in the long run, your company will need to accumulate knowledge about accessibility. Ideally not only through hiring one expert or training one employee. Having it all accessible will need to be part of our culture of doing business and attracting web traffic. Letting shoppers with disabilities navigate with ease and retaining them is good for the business as well. After all, what else can they do if you don’t keep them in the loop with you? They’ll go no further than your first accessible competitor! And this is what every shopper does when a store is not convenient. So, accessibility is good for the people, good for your compliance and ESG goals, and good for the business as well. It’s not some regulatory enforced painful thing – it’s a responsible approach for gaining a bigger potential market.
What’s on the technical end of it and how can companies approach it? Here’s the Access Drum part! As a specialist vendor we can take care of this with a multitude of solutions: from general training for your staff, to full audit of your web content done by professionally trained visually impaired testers. Automated scans have their applicability, but nothing can replace the thorough check done by a real person who tests your cart and checkout, your contact page or your product information online.
So, to summarize: your step-by-step approach in Accessibility should be: understanding it – embracing it – tackling it professionally with the help of the right partner!
