Automotive
VWSA director off to Shanghai
Volkswagen South Africa’s (VWSA’s) production director at its manufacturing plant in Uitenhage, Tom du Plessis, has taken up a foreign assignment to China to head up production at Volkswagen Shanghai. Du Plessis will be replaced by Antonio Pinto from Volkswagen de Mexico in Puebla, where he managed the body shop, paint shop and final assembly. Both appointments were effective from last month. Du Plessis joined VWSA in March 2008 as the head of production and was appointed to its management board as production director in 2009. During his tenure as plant director, VWSA modernised its manufacturing plant, constructed and commissioned a state-of-the-art press shop and introduced a new production system. As head of production in Shanghai, Du Plessis will oversee the manufacture of the Polo, Polo Classic, Santana, Touran and Passat and vehicle components. Volkswagen Shanghai has the capacity to produce more than 1.3 million vehicles a year. – Roy Cokayne
Energy
Sasol tops gas emissions list
Fuel and chemical producer Sasol emitted far more greenhouse gases than any of the other 100 biggest companies listed on the JSE, the Sunday Times reported yesterday. Despite this, it secured 54th place in the environmental section of Legae’s environmental, social and governance scorecard, doing better than financial firms, investment holding companies and information technology companies. Legae said this was because although Sasol was a major polluter, it was not apathetic on environmental issues. The authors of the report said some companies scored badly because of an absence of environmental policies. “Disclosure is too weak to make any reasonable comment,” Legae was quoted as saying. The authors noted that resource firms generally escaped the lowest rankings because of their efforts in terms of disclosure. This was despite the fact that the greenhouse gas emissions of the top four emitters – Sasol, BHP Billiton, ArcelorMittal South Africa and Anglo American – amounted to 2.5 times the combined emissions of the other 68 firms that disclosed emissions. – Sapa