Toyota Motor Corp. has told US employees that it will no longer participate in Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion focused activities such as “festivals and parades” and will instead narrow community activities to align with STEM education and workforce readiness”.
The move came after US based ‘anti-woke’ activist Robby Starbuck featured the Japanese car giant in a series on companies who he says have ‘gone woke’, however a spokesperson for Toyota says that the influence of Starbuck’s campaign was ‘negligible’.
The spokesperson told Bloomberg, “Starbuck’s public attack drew a few hundred queries from employees, questions from a ‘small population’ of dealers and about 30 customer calls to its call centre.”
The company memo circulated through its corporate communications network said that Toyota will no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.
The company says its objective is to “ensure the organisations and activities we support and engage in are aligned with our core values and strategies. When we find something that does not align with our values and strategies, we will address it directly.” it said.
Toyota says it will, “continue with our Toyota Business Partnering Groups (BPGs),” which it says “have always been open to all team members.”
It says these “serve to encourage an inclusive environment where diversity of thought can flourish. At the same time, we will work to ensure that the activities and events are focused on professional development, networking, mentoring and volunteering – team member engagement that drives our business.”
While emphasising that it will work “to ensure all company activities are aligned with our values and create an inclusive environment for our team members”, Toyota says it will continue to narrow its community activities “to align with STEM education and workforce readiness.”
It says that as a result of this it, “will no longer sponsor cultural events such as festivals and parades that are not related to STEM education and workforce readiness.”
The company says it has, “also been conducting an extensive review” of its “investments and strategic partnerships in every area of our business” and that it has “already determined we will no longer participate in external third-party culture surveys and indexes on a national/regional level such as Civic50, Fair360, Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and others.”
Reacting to the news activist Starbuck wrote on X, “I have to give the executives credit for taking this unifying action. It’s not easy to do but they’re preparing their business for future success by adopting corporate neutrality. The companies who adopt neutrality will win the future because they don’t violate the core beliefs of the consumers they rely on,”
As Gript previously reported, last year the parent company behind Bud Light, Anheuser-Busch, lost 10.5% of its revenue in the second quarter of 2023 after it featured an advert with trans-identified male influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
The featuring of Mulvaney on a specially made can of beer led to a reported loss of more than $6billion in market capitalisation in a matter of weeks after it announced its partnership with the controversial internet personality.