On Saturday night during a panel in the ASEAN Auditorium about corporate responsibility, a question and answer session highlighted tensions regarding a chemical company connected to a massive industrial disaster that occurred over 22 years ago.
The panel, part of the 2007 Norris and Margery Bendetson EPIIC International Symposium entitled "Global Crises: Governance and Intervention," featured seven speakers, including Andrew Liveris, the CEO of Dow Chemical and a current Tufts trustee.
During part of the night, Liveris had to defend Dow Chemical and its subsidiary company Union Carbide against pointed questions from audience members about a massive gas leak in Bhopal, India that led to what the BBC has called "one of the world's largest industrial accidents."
Approximately 3,000 people died in the days after the accident at Union Carbide's Bhopal plant, and around 50,000 people required treatment in the same period, according to the BBC. More have died in the following years. Union Carbide has since reached an agreement to pay almost $500 million, a small amount of what was originally sought.
Warren Anderson, the then-chairman of Union Carbide, still faces criminal charges in India, but has not been extradited.
Much of the clash between students and Liveris came during the question and answer period of the event, during which he defended his company.
"I am sorry, but you have to get your facts straight," Liveris told one questioner. "Go to New Delhi and talk to the Indian government. That case was settled long ago by Union Carbide with the Indian government for $470 million dollars which is still sitting in escrow," he said.
He said it is now the Indian government's job to use the money in an appropriate way. "It is the responsibility of the Indian government to clean up in Bhopal, not Dow," he said.
But students entering Cabot Auditorium got a different impression while treading on a sidewalk featuring chalkings protesting Dow. One read "Poisoned by Dow," while others included statistics.
Aquene Freechild, a Somerville resident and active member of Students for Bhopal, took responsibility for the chalkings.
"If I dump chemicals on your lawn, it doesn't mean I'm not responsible for cleaning them up, even if it is your property," she said.
The panel itself proceeded largely without interruption as each speaker discussed the importance of environmentally and socially conscious policies. Many stressed that such practices strengthen a company's reputation and instill confidence in its investors.
David Puth (A '79), the former managing director and head of global currency and commodities at JPMorgan Chase, introduced and set the tone for the panel after he received an Alumni Achievement Award on behalf of the Institute for Global Leadership.
"Despite tremendous [economic] growth, one-third of people in the world still live on less than $2 a day, and 50 percent of babies born in New York City in 2007 will be born into poverty," Puth told the audience, finishing by urging students to join groups that mirror their beliefs.
Liveris, who was the first panelist to speak, did not directly touch upon the past or current situation in Bhopal during his speech, instead choosing to highlight Dow Chemical's work with the Blue Planet Run Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing safe drinking water on a global level, and point out that the chemical industry is the "safest of all industries."
He underscored the ethical obligations tied to running a business, saying that "focusing solely on finance blinds a company," and that it is "not about what you should or could do, but what you must do."
Charles Prince, CEO of Citigroup, the world's largest international private bank, spoke of a debacle in Japan in which Japanese regulators found fault with Citigroup's banking. The possibility of losing business in Japan was not Prince's primary concern; he said the $60 million in business Citigroup does there every year is "pocket change." Instead, Prince was concerned with the company's loss of credibility.
"It wasn't about finance, it was about control," he said. He made the situation an example of the importance of responsible business: "We took a crisis and created a sense of imperative," Prince said.
Other speakers included Michael Chu, a senior and founding partner of Pegasus Capital; Martin Lipton, the chairman of the Board of Trustees at New York University; Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental interest organizations; and Andrew Savitz, a senior consultant for the firm Sustainable Business Strategies.
During the question and answer session, Liveris had to defend himself from a salvo of questions ranging from Dow Chemicals' controversial dealings in Bhopal, to marketing of a specific chemical.
Eventually, Liveris sought to divert attention from himself and asked if the audience could ask questions of the other panelists, saying that they were very bright people and that he "was interested in learning from them, too."
