ERLANGER, Ky. (April 16, 2015) – How will you make a positive impact on Earth Day?  Turn off the lights in an empty room?  Recycle?  Save water?
 
At Toyota, every day is Earth Day and the little things add up, especially when almost 43,000 team members across 14 North America manufacturing plants do them.  Such efforts have saved nearly $600 million since benchmarking began in 2002.
 
They’ve also resulted in Toyota’s 11^th consecutive ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence Award from the U.S. EPA for continued leadership in protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency.
 
Eleven consecutive ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence Awards are the most by any automaker.
 
Examples of achieving energy efficiency at Toyota’s 14 North American manufacturing plants include:
 

• Reduced total energy use by 35 percent per vehicle produced or 14 billion kilowatt hours of energy.*  That’s enough power to keep the city of Chicago up and running for nearly an entire year.

 

• Reduced CO2 emissions by 40 percent per vehicle produced by eliminating the use of electricity and natural gas when avoidable.*

 
*Since benchmarking began in 2002
 
“While there’s always room for improvement, achieving energy efficiency demonstrates that good ideas have helped us become environmentally responsible while making a significant impact to our bottom line,” said Robin Haugen general manager of Toyota’s plant and environmental group.  “Through our team members’ efforts and outstanding collaboration, we have minimized our environmental footprint in communities where we assemble vehicles, engines and parts.  We’re so proud to receive our 11^th consecutive ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence Award from the U.S. EPA and we’ll strive to do better.”
 
Recent environmental improvement activities across some of Toyota’s 14 manufacturing plants include:
 
Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Alabama (Huntsville)

• Saved 300,000 gallons of water a year – enough to fill half of an Olympic-size swimming pool – by reusing compressor condensate water in the cooling tower.  The tower accounts for nearly 50 percent of the facility’s water use. 
• Switched to higher-efficiency motors and used compressed air more efficiently.
• Installed LED lighting, solar lights and daylighting to reduce purchased electricity.
• All environmental projects – part of a $1 million investment to make the plant more sustainable – result in annual saving of more than 3.3 million kilowatts hours, equal to 125 average U.S. homes and reducing more than 2,000 metric tons of CO2.

 
Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana (Princeton)

• Reduced the volume of air that has to be conditioned in the paint booths, a process that’s necessary for the paint to adhere to vehicles.  The project reduced energy use by 125,000 MMBtus, enough to power 1,450 average U.S. homes for a year and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 8,900 metric tons.

 
In addition to the energy and greenhouse gas savings, the improved paint process reduced the amount of paint and emissions.
 
Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky (Georgetown)

• The plant has teamed up with Waste Services of the Bluegrass to generate power from local landfill waste that naturally creates methane gas, marking the region’s first business-to-business landfill gas to energy initiative.  Toyota estimates the locally generated landfill gas will supply enough power each year for the production of 10,000 vehicles. Once operational later this spring, the system will generate one megawatt of electricity each hour the system is operating, or about what it takes to power nearly 800 average U.S. homes annually.

 
Plus landfill greenhouse gas emissions will be cut by as much as 90 percent, resulting in better air quality for the local community.
 
Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Mississippi (Blue Springs)

• Installed a geothermal heat exchanger that supplies chilled water to a compressed air dryer to eliminate the chiller load in the winter months when the plant’s HVAC systems are not using chilled water.  This reduces electricity usage by 1.5 million kilowatt hours per year, equal to 56 average U.S. homes.
• Installed a single axis solar cell array in spring 2013, with a maximum output of 50 kilowatts.  The power generated by the array is redirected back to New Albany Light, Gas & Water, the local utility company, and ultimately is transferred back onto the grid for public use.

 
Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas (San Antonio)

• The plant uses about 1 million gallons of recycled water per production day, or about 250 million gallons each year.  Since its opening in 2007, the plant has used nearly 2 billion gallons of recycled water.  That’s nearly 2 billion gallons that wasn’t drawn from the local Edwards Aquifer.

 
Toyota’s accomplishments will be recognized in Washington, D.C. on April 20.