Toyota: Cleaner Cars From Greener Factories

Toyota promotes environmental excellence at the home of new Auris Hybrid

EPSOM, UNITED KINGDOM – May 28, 2010: Toyota’s UK manufacturing operations are European leaders in environmental performance, making them the ideal choice for building the new low-emissions Auris Hybrid. In the drive towards creating a low carbon society, Toyota Manufacturing UK (TMUK) has steadily reduced waste and energy usage and continues to engage all its employees in developing even greater environmental efficiency.

This dovetails perfectly with the start of production of new Auris Hybrid, the first volume hybrid model to be built anywhere in Europe. It is also the first car to bring full hybrid technology to the family hatchback market, delivering an unmatched combination of 89g/km CO2 emissions and 74.3mpg combined cycle fuel efficiency.

“Building Auris Hybrid enables us to take a leading role in the move to a low carbon economy,” said Tony Walker, TMUK Deputy Managing Director. “At Burnaston we are proud to be building cars with low emissions in a factory that itself has a low carbon impact and which is constantly working to cut waste and use of energy and natural resources.”

As “sustainable plants”, both Burnaston and Deeside are a standard-bearer for environmental management for Toyota in Europe Thanks to the work done at TMUK, Toyota was the first car manufacturer in the UK to achieve the ISO 14001 standard for environmental management across both plants and to reduce both waste-to-landfill and waste-to-incineration to zero. Since production began in 1992, the amount of energy and water required to build each vehicle has been reduced by more than 60 per cent.

Today TMUK continues to focus on even stronger environmental performance, as Dave Chapman, Assistant General Manager Facilities and Environment, explained: “Environmental improvement is at the heart of what we do day to day and most of the significant achievements have been as a result of involving of our employees and listening to their ideas.”

As an example of this approach in action, TMUK organises “eco tours” for employees, arranging for them to see work being done on site that they would not normally encounter, such as the waste management and recycling centre and the planting and estate management around the factory to support biodiversity.

The initiative goes beyond the factory gates, too, to encourage environmental awareness in the local community. Through an eco-card scheme, employees are also given advice and support on how to reduce their carbon footprint and cut waste in their own homes.

“What we have done here is really just the start,” said Dave, “ and we will continue with the support of our employees to improve our environmental efficiency even further.”

The new Toyota Auris Hybrid is on sale from 1 July