When driving, car engines release emissions into the air, influencing the chemical composition of the atmosphere we breathe and indirectly affecting weather patterns around the globe. The challenge is: How can these emissions be further reduced?

A second environmental impact comes from the fact that vehicles are made out of metals, plastics and other manufactured materials. Can cars be designed so that they can be recycled more easily and comprehensively? And automotive factories use energy and materials to manufacture new vehicles, and produce waste as a by-product. How can factories be designed to respond more efficiently to environmental constraints?

For Toyota, minimizing these kinds of environmental impact has long been a top priority at every level of the company’s organisation and activity. The company’s environmental policy forms part of a much wider vision of sustainable development, one of the cornerstones of global economic thinking for the future. And building completely recyclable cars with zero emissions is Toyota’s foremost challenge for the years to come.

Much of the debate surrounding sustainable mobility, or the development of the ultimate eco-car, places a cleaner environment in opposition to economic and industrial growth. The thinking goes: you can only have one or the other, but not both. It is in Toyota’s corporate culture to work hard when confronted with these challenges, to try and achieve both and more!