Building Inclusive Games That Reflect Their Communities

When accessibility is discussed, it’s often framed as something that needs to be added later. A service launches, a barrier is identified and adjustments follow. Too often, that creates unnecessary challenges for the people the system is meant to serve.

A better question is whether those people were involved from the very beginning.

As Scotland prepares to host major events such as the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games and continues to modernise public services and infrastructure, that question feels increasingly important. Across our work as a partner at the Games, we’ll be encouraging more people to recycle through ballot bins – a playful waste solution, allowing users to vote with their recycling – situated in the Scotstoun Stadium and East Plaza of the Scottish Event Campus. And this summer, we’ll also be thinking about how future systems such as the Deposit Return Scheme are designed to maximise inclusivity and effectiveness, reminding us that the best solutions are often intuitive from the outset.

That thinking is exactly what’s behind one of our latest projects. This summer, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Exchange for Change and Special Olympics Great Britain will trial Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) at the Special Olympics Great Britain National Summer Games in Birmingham. Coca-Cola has been a founding partner of Special Olympics GB since its launch in 1978, and this summer’s Games – the largest celebration of inclusive sport in Great Britain in almost a decade – is an important moment in a long-running partnership.

Around 1,700 athletes with learning disabilities will take part in the Games, alongside thousands of spectators and volunteers. Together, they’ll help us answer an important question ahead of the launch of the Deposit Return Scheme in Scotland and the rest of the UK in October 2027: does the system work for everyone who will use it?

That is precisely why the Special Olympics Games provide such a valuable setting for this work. They allow us to observe how people of all abilities engage with the technology in a real-world setting and identify barriers that might otherwise go unnoticed. Too often, people with learning disabilities encounter systems that have been designed around assumptions that don’t reflect their experiences.

Rather than waiting until after the Deposit Return Scheme is introduced, we’re supporting Exchange for Change in gathering insight while there is still time to make improvements before the
national rollout. The aim isn’t simply to test technology. It’s to understand how people interact with it and use those findings to help inform accessibility guidance for future RVM design and implementation.

The same thinking can be applied much closer to home.

Earlier this year, one of our East Kilbride apprentices, Jaya Gill, organised a charity football tournament that brought together colleagues, customers, partners and members of the Scottish National Cerebral Palsy Football Association. More than 80 people took part in teams intentionally designed to include participants from a range of backgrounds and abilities. What made it stand out was that inclusion had been considered from the outset, reflecting the community around it and giving everyone the opportunity to participate on equal terms.

That might seem like a small example compared with a national recycling scheme or an international sporting event, but the underlying principle is exactly the same. Systems tend to work better when the people using them help shape them.

Whether we’re talking about public services, environmental programmes, transport infrastructure or major events, bringing more voices into the design process, usually leads to better outcomes.

For businesses, there is a responsibility to use our influence thoughtfully. As a partner to events including the Special Olympics GB National Summer Games, the FIFA World Cup™ and Glasgow 2026™, we can help amplify conversations about accessibility and inclusion with political stakeholders, while ensuring those perspectives help shape the experiences we create.

The most inclusive events aren’t those that become accessible over time. They’re the ones that reflect their communities from the moment they are created.

This article is sponsored by Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.

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