BRUSSELS – Toyota Motor Europe (TME) recently announced it reached 100 percent renewable electricity use across all its European operations and facilities in 2019.
Toyota’s European operations include nine manufacturing plants, 14 parts depots centers, seven vehicle logistics centers, 29 national marketing and sales companies (NMSCs), TME head office and its branch offices, and Toyota Technical Center, which jointly had a total electricity demand of around 500 GWh.
“Switching to 100 percent renewable electricity to run our entire European operations is a significant step towards our Environmental Challenge 2050. Having sustainable operations in Europe is very important if we want citizens and consumers to continue supporting Toyota,” says Dr. Johan van Zyl, president and CEO of Toyota Motor Europe. “Thanks to the market success of our hybrid electric vehicles, we are well on track to meet our European CO2 emissions targets for new vehicles – but when it comes to the environment, we take a 360-degree approach and aim to go beyond just vehicle emissions.”
The 100 percent renewable electricity across all operations was achieved through a mix of encouraging renewable electricity production on Toyota sites with local stakeholders, purchasing renewable electricity when available, purchasing European Certificates (“Guarantee of Origin”) for EU countries as regulated by EU Directive 2009/28/EC, and purchasing of International-Renewable Electricity Certificate (I-REC) for non-EU countries as recognized by the international I-REC standard.
The achievement to decarbonize the electricity demand are in addition to Toyota’s on-going efforts to reduce overall energy consumption in its operations. Since 2013, TME’s manufacturing plants have reduced the energy per car built by 18 percent. In comparison to the EU28 industry average of 2.3 MWh energy per vehicle produced, Toyota required 48 percent less energy per vehicle produced.
Environmental sustainability has always been a priority for Toyota. Environmental matters have been discussed by Toyota top-management since 1963 when the Environmental Committee was established. Since 1973 the company promoted environmental awareness of its employees through Environmental Month. The company established a 5-Year action planning in 1992 to reduce its environmental footprint and conserve valuable resources for the planet; not only by reducing the environmental impact of automobiles, but also focusing on all related operations.
The Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050, announced in 2015, is comprised of 6 challenges and is the foundation of Toyota’s long-term strategy, covering the most important environmental impacts of the company.
Achieving 100 percent renewable electricity is contributing to the company’s targets for Challenge 2, Lifecycle Zero CO2 Emissions, and Challenge 3, Manufacturing Plant Zero CO2 Emissions, which aim to eliminate CO2 emissions of the entire vehicle life-cycle, including supporting operations and manufacturing plants.
