RESPONSIBILITY EDUCATE

climate tech, I’ve never worked in an necessity of education yet so unclear about like. We talk a lot about the ‘education to explain why people aren’t buying prepared for what it would mean to doesn’t get it because they haven’t been want to get it. Whether we like it or issue and people have become polarised.”

Knights-Ward

Both the US and UK discussions prompted questions about the nature of business itself. On one hand, panellists like Pfizer’s Sally Susman were clear about the limits of their corporate responsibility – why, after all, should something so important as education on social equality be left to a pharmaceutical company? While moral imperatives and financial ones are not customary bedfellows, the question that emerged was one of ability as much as of willingness.

Other panellists noted the capacity of the world’s largest corporations to provide access to services and resources at scales and speeds that governments or non-profits could only dream of. But does it follow that, because an entity can help in a given situation, it should be obliged to? Considering the comparable helplessness of not just private citizens but institutional bodies too, it’s a proposition that arises naturally from a market – like the US’s – with almost no upper limit on the power of its corporations.

“Education is certainly at the root of the answer to all sorts of things. The thing that Pfizer does best is make breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. That’s what I think is the best, highest use of our talent and resources. And while I think that the responsibility to solve for other challenges certainly exists among us, corporations must ensure their decisions on whether or not to wade into issues are based on very strong corporate values and not socio-political pressures.”

Sally Susman, Pfizer