2016 North American Environmental Report Highlights

TORONTO, ONTARIO, December 15, 2016 – For Toyota, boldly shaping the future of mobility starts with striving toward reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across Canada and the United States, as released in its sixteenth annual North American Environmental Report.

Efforts that address ever-better cars, ever-better manufacturing, and enriching lives within communities, are a core part of Toyota’s commitment to the brand’s global Environmental Challenge 2050, an ambitious set of six challenges that hopes to ultimately have a net positive impact on the planet.

“Our corporate culture is rooted in continuous improvement, which means making steady progress, one step at a time, toward a bigger impact and change,” said Stephen Beatty, Chief Environmental Officer, Toyota Canada Inc. “Working closely with our dealers, partners and suppliers in Canada, we’re very proud of how we continue to reduce our environmental footprint in different ways, creating a more sustainable future.”

The report highlights annual progress made in achieving goals and targets set out in the company’s Environmental Action Plan. This initiative is a collaboration among Toyota’s North American affiliates including: Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI), Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. (TMMC), Toyota Motor North America Inc. (TMNA), Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. (TEMA), and Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. (TMS).

It chronicles the actions taken over the past year by Toyota in Canada – and throughout the continent – in the areas of carbon, water, materials, and biodiversity, as well as outreach activities.

Among the Canadian highlights from this year’s report:

• Team members at TMMC and their colleagues from a supplier invented a way to recycle vehicle headliner offcuts – the pieces cut out of a vehicle’s roof to make room for a sunroof – into reusable and returnable packaging for parts deliveries. Now known as “R3 Board,” it performs better than the material it is replacing.

• The Toyota Evergreen Learning Grounds (TELG) program continued to transform barren Canadian school grounds into natural environments. Since 2000, TELG has distributed more than $3.2 million through 2,370 grants to schools across Canada. More than 1.2 million elementary and secondary school students have directly benefited from greening projects at their schools. 

• In May, TMMC announced $250,000 in funding for the Grand River Conservation Foundation to help expand recreation programs at Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) parks.

• Toyota Canada’s rally team of Vinh Pham and Alan Ockwell, piloting a Toyota Prius, placed first in the hybrid category and second overall at the first ever Nîmes-Alès eco-rally in the mountains of southern France.

• TCI executives and team members dedicated their lunch time during Earth Week to cleaning up the outdoor area near the company’s head office in Toronto. 66 bags of garbage and 60 kilograms of other items were collected. 

• Québec Toyota dealers supported The Eden Projects, where seedlings were distributed to more than 450 children in select Québec schools during Earth Week, to create an urban forest in the city of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. The same number of trees were planted by students at a school in Madagascar, where more than 90 per cent of that country’s original forests have been destroyed.  

To view the complete 2016 North American Environmental Report, please click here.   

About Toyota Canada Inc.

Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI) is the exclusive Canadian distributor of Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles.  Toyota has sold over 5 million vehicles in Canada through a national network of 286 Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealerships.  Toyota is dedicated to bringing safety, quality, dependability and reliability in the vehicles Canadians drive and the service they receive.  TCI’s head office is located in Toronto, with regional offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax and parts distribution centres in Toronto and Vancouver.  Toyota operates two manufacturing facilities in Canada. Having produced more than six million vehicles, popular Canadian models built at these facilities include Toyota RAV4, Toyota Corolla, Lexus RX 350 and RX 450h hybrid.

###