Interbrand Names Toyota Best Global Green Brand For Second Year Running

[frv]

Toyota retains the number one position in the second annual Best Global Green Brands report, published by international brand consultancy Interbrand this week.

FRV - CleanMPG - June 27, 2012

2012 Toyota Yaris Hybrid in the UK – Nearly the same 50 mpgUS rated vehicle as the very affordable Prius c here in the US.

The report gauges the gap between public perception of a brand’s environmental performance – its “green image” – and its actual environmental practices, using publicly available data and information.

Interbrand credits Toyota’s achievement to the fact it continues to make environmental sustainability a core priority, and it cites the expansion of the world’s first mass-produced full hybrid vehicle, the Toyota Prius, into a full family of models as a further success story for the company.

Worldwide sales of Toyota’s full hybrid vehicles passed four million at the end of April this year. In the UK Toyota has sold more than 95,000 Toyota and Lexus hybrids since 2000.

This is a landmark year in the development of Prius in the UK with the introduction of the seven-seater Prius+ and Prius Plug-in alongside the established, third generation Prius hatchback. This extension of the range to create a family of models makes the environmental benefits of Prius’s hybrid technology available to a wider range of customers, with different motoring needs. Toyota has also brought its full hybrid technology to the supermini market for the first time, with the recent introduction of the European-built Yaris Hybrid.

Toyota is aiming to reduce carbon emissions throughout the complete manufacturing and sales processes. It is also working towards conserving natural resources through reuse and recycling of materials. Toyota’s UK factory is one of the company’s global flagships for best environmental practice in terms of reducing waste and energy consumption and in harnessing power from renewable sources using one of the country’s largest arrays of solar panels…

[bill14224]

What's "green"? When we make a super high-tech hybrid car full of heavy metals with twice as many parts aren't we largely moving the pollution from one place to another? Can't well-designed, simpler, sensible conventional vehicles accomplish the same thing for less cost?

I've long been a fan of small cars and motorcycles but I've long understood I'm in the minority. Many people want everyone else to drive a puddle-jumper but they want a truck, or a small fleet of trucks. Al Gore comes to mind. It's very tempting for me to jump on the bandwagon and encourage the government to raise fuel standards until the general public can't afford to drive alone to work in a V-8 SUV. But then I think again. Liberty is more important to me than anything else. I like my freedom of choice, so I'm not about to take other people's choices away.

If the gov't was really interested in a cleaner environment rather than control over our lives they'd be spearheading compressed natural gas as motor fuel. It's about half the cost of gasoline and it's better in every way. Your engine runs the same. Your engine and oil lasts much longer. No acid deposits form. Nothing comes out your tailpipe but CO2 and water. No catalytic converter needed. With a compressor you can fill your car at home if you have natural gas locally. Since I live in NY we do. We're sitting on an ocean of natural gas. I say let's use it!

[Right Lane Cruiser]

I laud your goals but you are mistaken about the "full of heavy metals" comment.

CNG is definitely a cleaner alternative but it also is another non-renewable resource. Switching from one finite resource to another doesn't seem to me to be a good long term strategy -- especially since the efficiency in a combustion engine (converting to kinetic energy) isn't nearly what you can squeeze out of a furnace (converting straight to heat). I'd much rather use it for heating where it last longer and keep winter costs down than end up right back where we are now with oil in less than 50yrs... but also have ridiculous heating costs.

[herm]

Originally Posted by bill14224

What's "green"? When we make a super high-tech hybrid car full of heavy metals with twice as many parts aren't we largely moving the pollution from one place to another?

I think you are confusing a hybrid with an electric and then complaining about the remote smokestack problem.. the battery in a hybrid is not that big of a deal, at least it can be recycled at the end of its life (10-15 years) and rebuilt into something else.. in the process it has saved 5.8 tons of gasoline. If you stretch it out to 300k miles then bigger savings.

There is an energy cost building your car in another country, and you do pay for the transportation costs.

What heavy metals in a car?.. plutonium?.. there is as much nickel in my cutlery drawer as in a Prius.