We examined the financial and social consequences of complying with the European Accessibility Act for Swedish players

The problem

• The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is looking to ensure that citizens with disabilities or functional limitations have improved access to suitable products and services
• We were commissioned by the Swedish Government to explore the impact the EAA might have on Swedish companies, namely the financial consequences, and direct and indirect benefits

The solution

• We performed a cost-benefit analysis based on interviews with industry players across six sectors, IT consultants, accessibility experts and representatives with specialist knowledge around accessibility
  • we divided our assessment according to the six sectors and additional data was gathered from previous studies
• We assessed the financial impact using a model created by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth. Costs for holiday pay, employer contributions and overhead costs were added to the hourly cost for all professional roles
  • we accounted for the limitations of our assessment by adding a min-max range of the expected costs and annual operating expenditure
• Direct and indirect benefits were identified using qualitative reasoning based on interview data

Figure: Expected investment cost and annual operating expenditure

The result

• The findings were: SEK10 billion in investment costs, SEK1 billion annual running costs, increased societal inclusion, democratisation of digital transformation, increased target group size for products and services (and therefore margins and revenue), increased customer satisfaction and increased employee engagement
• Our report was included as a chapter in the Swedish Government Report “Tillgänglighetsdirektivet“ (SOU 2021:44)