Innovative Practice 2018 on Accessibility

Shoe-shops, barrier-free for all

APSA is an NGO and service provider for people with disabilities operating in Alicante, Spain. In 2010 the organization started a partnership with Tempe Grupo Inditex, the company which designs, markets, and distributes the footwear and accessories for various Inditex retail brands like Zara, Pull&Bear, and Massimo Dutti. In 2010, they developed the for&from Elche store, which is uniquely designed to provide universal accessibility for consumers with various disabilities. for&from Tempe Inditex Group stores are part of the Inditex for&from project, an innovative work integration initiative for people with disabilities.

“The complete elimination of barriers and its firm commitment to accessibility make us persons with disabilities feel full users and citizens.”

Juan Manuel42 years old, person with achondroplasia
About the practice at a glance
Name of Innovative Practice:Shoe-shops, barrier-free for all
Organisation:APSA
Country
of Implementation		Spain

FACTS & FIGURES

  • For & From has had more than 200,000 customers since its start in 2010.
  • The store has provided jobs for five with physical and sensory disabilities and four with cognitive disabilities

PROBLEMS TARGETED

The possibility of barrier-free shopping in Spain is still quite rare. Although some physical barriers have been removed, many more remain. For example, displays and checkouts are at a height making it impossible for wheelchair users to shop, and some of the fonts used on labels are too small to be easily read by the visually impaired.

SOLUTION, INNOVATION, AND IMPACT

The for&from store in Elche is highly innovative in its design and layout. Products are provided by size and the articles are also marked by using different colours, making Shopping A group picture of the staff.much easier for older people or those with some form of cognitive disability. In addition, the shop provides special services, such as the use of sign language for people with a hearing impairment.
Tempe has created a ‘quality assurance circle’ made up of persons with different types of disability who visit the store as mystery shoppers, assess its accessibility, and report the results back to the company. Staff members at the store have received specific training in serving persons with any disability, which is also facilitated by the fact that most of them are also persons with disabilities.
As a result, it has obtained the ISO 170001 certification for universal accessibility. for&from has welcomed more than 200,000 customers since its opening in 2010.

OUTLOOK, TRANSFERABILITY AND FUNDING

Over the years there has been a constant growth in Spain of persons with disabilities as customers, as well as in the number of persons with disabilities who take part in various training programmes.

The practice has the potential to continue to be replicated and since it is a design and accessibility model, it can be imitated by other commercial brands as well.
The project has not received any external finance, but has been maintained entirely with income from its own commercial activity.
With the aim of quantifying the social profits gained from the for&from project, the Fundación Ecología y Desarrollo (ECODES) carried out a study to identify and analyse the social and socio-economic returns from the project entitled ‘Identification and analysis of the social and socio-economic return of for&from through application of the Social Return on Investments (SROI) methodology’.
The study found that for&from creates social, economic and socio-economic value approximately seven times greater than the investment made by Inditex to implement the programme.

A picture of the store.

CONTACT

Francisco González Maciá
pacogm@tempe.es
www.tempe.es

FACTSHEET

Download factsheet as accessible Word
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VIDEO

Watch Video of the Zero Project Award Ceremony
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LINKS AND FURTHER READING
  • The story of Marta Gomis, shop assistant in “For & From” Tempe shop