Inclusive Tourism and Sustainable Corporate Responsibility

Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles and the author of "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "Collapse." In a New York Times opinion piece he writes:

My friends in the business world keep telling me that Washington can help on two fronts: by investing in green research, offering tax incentives and passing cap-and-trade legislation; and by setting and enforcing tough standards to ensure that companies with cheap, dirty standards don't have a competitive advantage over those businesses protecting the environment. As for the rest of us, we should get over the misimpression that American business cares only about immediate profits, and we should reward companies that work to keep the planet healthy.

He goes on to elaborate convincing arguments and rebuttals in an article well worth reading "Will Big Business Save the Earth? "

The current Copenhagen conference on global climate change has ecological sustainability in the air even as concern for social sustainability wanes. Both are essential as the concept Geotourism affirms. Both have their own reasons for needing Universal Design. To the extent that we succeed in engaging the social and ecological sustainability arguments with each other the disability community will benefit.

The following report by IBM concludes with three ways to make corporate social responsibility (CSR) sustainable. Articulating the interests of people with disabilities within the eco- and social sustainability movements will embed them in CSR:

In order to attain sustainable growth through CSR, companies must:

1. Align and incorporate CSR with business strategy and integrate it across all operational
functions, thus making it easy to invest (not spend) the funds necessary to achieve its objctives.

[How do we change PwD and their interests from being perceived as business costs to being sought after as business investments?]

2. Implement an open information strategy for more transparent information sharing with
multiple stakeholders

[How does an open information strategy incorporate accessible media and Universal Design for Learning?]

 
3. Leverage transparency to increase the level of engagement of key constituents and
customers.

[What does the company know about the demographic that is people with disabilities and techniques to engage this demographic?]