The article “Climate irony” (On My Mind, July 17-23) refers. I am not sure that I understand the connection between local government’s responsibility to provide a safe, enabling environment for its citizens — both corporate and human — and global climate change or corporate responsibility.
No solutions are offered in the article except for suggesting the hypocrisy of a corporate citizen whose primary focus is profit (my words). When did profit maximisation become subservient to all the other sideshows?
Tragically, as was highlighted in the article, citizens lost their possessions and lives. But should we hold the Almighty or the government accountable? And how does the human tragedy relate to the financial loss suffered by Toyota?
Greenhouse gas emissions from industry, estimated globally at 12%, may have contributed to the deluge. Still, such a tenuous correlation was not directly quantified in the case of Toyota South Africa. Taking a global figure and correlating it to a local operation seems a stretch.
Perhaps if the article mentioned Toyota South Africa’s employment figures across its business, contribution to foreign earnings, tax paid and social programmes, it would have offered some balance.
Punkaj Tulsi
By e-mail
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