From Water to Waste to Wildlife: Toyota’s Environmental 'To Do' List

Launch the only zero emission vehicle with more than 300 miles of driving range – check. 

Manufacture vehicles using renewable energy from landfill gas – check.

Save more than 54 million gallons of water by reducing, reusing and recycling – check. 

Certify more than 1,000 acres of land in North America to Wildlife Habitat Council’s Wildlife at Work program – check.  

Reuse hybrid batteries to create stationary energy systems – check. 

The environmental “to do” list is lengthy and the achievements above, along with many more, are featured in our latest North American Environmental Report 



Five priority issues - carbon, water, materials, biodiversity, and outreach - guide Toyota’s efforts in North America. Here are a few highlights from each:

Carbon

• Toyota Mirai is the only zero emission electric vehicle on the market that tops the 300 mile range milestone. Mirai is a fuel cell electric vehicle that uses hydrogen as fuel and emits only water vapor.
• 11th consecutive ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence Award from the U.S. EPA. Toyota’s 14 North American manufacturing plants have reduced energy use by nearly 14 billion kilowatt hours since 2002.
• Toyota’s Georgetown assembly plant now generates green power from local landfill gas, enough for the production of 10,000 vehicles per year.

Water

• Toyota saved over 54 million gallons of water in North America during fiscal year 2015, enough to fill 82 Olympic-size swimming pools.
• Team members at Toyota’s assembly plant in San Antonio, Texas, reduced water use by 80 gallons per vehicle produced by installing additional filtration in the paint shop.
• Toyota’s Chicago Service Training Center collects rain water and routes it to a rain garden where it’s reabsorbed into planting beds. Together with drought-tolerant native landscaping, this eliminates the need for irrigation.

Materials

• Toyota’s North American facilities reduced, reused, recycled or composted over 96 percent of non-regulated waste during calendar year 2014.
• Toyota has 28 North American facilities that meet the U.S. Zero Waste Business Council’s definition of a “Zero Waste Business” – one with a 90 percent or greater diversion of all waste from landfill, incineration and the environment.
• Toyota’s plant in Alabama is the first in North America to reuse batteries from end-of-life hybrid vehicles as stationary energy storage. Using these batteries gives them a second life and keeps them out of landfills.

Biodiversity

• Toyota currently has over 1,000 acres across nine North American sites certified to the Wildlife Habitat Council’s Wildlife at Work program.
• Toyota’s assembly plant in Mississippi planted four pollinator gardens last year; all four were certified by Monarch Watch as monarch waystations. Waystations offer habitat for the monarch butterfly, whose numbers have declined 90 percent in the last two decades.
• Over 130,000 trees were planted at Toyota’s Indiana assembly plant between 2008 and 2014. In 10 years, when these trees reach their peak, they will be capturing and storing 2,170 tons of CO2 from the air annually.

Outreach

• At the Lamar Buffalo Ranch in Yellowstone National Park, an innovative distributed energy system combines solar power generation with reused Camry Hybrid battery packs. The result: reliable, sustainable, zero emission power to the field campus for the first time since it was founded in 1907.
• Residents from more than 3,900 U.S. cities pledged to save over 1.5 billion gallons of water as part of the annual National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation, supported by Toyota.
• Forty seven Toyota and Lexus dealers have achieved LEED® certification – that’s more LEED-certified dealers in the U.S. and Canada than any other auto manufacturer.