Name of practice: Access4you® certification

Organisation: Access4you International

Country: Budapest, Hungary  

Funding: Access4you business model helps people access their database free of charge, but location owners and businesses pay for the certification process and the use of the certification mark. In 2022, Access4you started to establish our accredited partner network internationally starting from Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2023, Access4you is also present in India. The company is funded by private investment by the company owners, Erste Foundation Social Loan and since 2023 July, the Hungarian Development Bank VC Hiventures’ investment.

Description of the Organisation: Access4you International is a social enterprise that works for disability inclusion by collecting accessibility information and promoting accessibility development in all types of businesses. Access4you assesses, certifies, and qualifies the accessibility of the built environment based on a proprietary 1000-point criteria system, according to the usability criteria of 9 stakeholder groups. Access4you provides validated accessibility information for persons with disabilities, their families, as well as for persons with special needs. Access4you also helps other organisations to assess the accessibility of their physical locations, provide development suggestions for better accessibility, and help reach persons with disabilities through their website and social media channels. The Access4you European certification mark supports effective communication and increases the value of a property. 

Description of Practice: Access4you® is an international certification mark that provides detailed and reliable information on the accessibility of the built environment for persons with special needs in mobility, vision, hearing and cognitive areas, as well as for property owners/operators/tenants. The mark guarantees that certified information on the accessibility of sites is available free of charge on the Access4you database, website, and mobile application. These can be filtered by relevance and include descriptions, images, accurate dimensions, and useful photos. It also ensures that, for at least one affected group, the site meets the minimum accessibility requirements set by Access4you. The mark does not only support people with support needs, but also benefits property owners and businesses: besides contributing to their business and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals, they can see how accessible their sites are, as well as how they can improve accessibility for specific stakeholder groups. 

Impact and Sustainability: 

The main target groups are persons with disabilities, but also s businesses and property owners, as Access4you strongly believe that accessibility benefits everyone.

Access4you’s impact is based on three pilars:

1. Promoting the social (re)integration of people with disabilities

With detailed and reliable accessibility information, persons with disabilities can plan their daily lives in advance which supports them in living more independently and being included in the community.

Social Impact Key Performance Indicators: the number of users on Access4you website between June 2022 and June 2023 is 20 000 and this number continuously increases as their usersbase expands. Access4you’s goal is to double the number of users by the end of 2024.

    2. Improving accessibility of the built environment, inspiring inclusive approaches in companies

The certification scheme encourages owners/tenants/operators of real estate to improve accessibility. Improving accessibility contributes directly and indirectly to increasing inclusiveness, moving towards a more people-centred corporate values and operations.

Social impact KPI: Access4you have assessed around 1000 locations in 23 countries based on the criteria of nine stakeholder groups. Approximately every third audit process leads to further accessibility improvements (whether big or small), in which Access4you’s qualification system often plays a motivational role as well.

     3.Sharing Access4you's knowledge, methodology and technology

Through its proprietary accreditation programme, involving companies and individuals who master the methodology, Access4you further increases the positive social impact, scalability of the product and related services.

Social impact KPI: Access4you has already 30 accredited partners working with us worldwide representing 15 companies.

Scalability & transferability: Access4you’s fully digitalized accreditation program is designed to help companies, professional individuals or even non profit organisations to gain the skills and knowledge they need to assess and certify building accessibility and to promote the access4you® certification mark.  Access4you provides full support based on an internationally tested proprietary methodology: sales and marketing communications processes, dedicated software, training, and an online knowledge base to master the certification process.

Contact Information: Andrea Szilágyi