Environmental performance at Toyota in the U.K.

RP news wires, Noria Corporation

Toyota Motor Manufacturing (U.K.) Ltd. (TMUK) manufactures cars in Derbyshire and engines in North Wales. Since 1992 when it started manufacturing in the United Kingdom, the company has produced more than 2.5 million vehicles and 3 million engines. The company employs more than 4,700 people and had a turnover of £2.7 billion in 2008. Throughout all areas of the business, TMUK continues to set challenging targets with key indicators to measure its environmental performance, focusing on reducing energy and water use, solvent emissions and waste requiring disposal.

During the production of cars, the painting process uses 54 percent of the energy used in the whole manufacturing process. The majority of this (52 percent) is used to maintain the temperature and humidity in the spraying booths. To reduce this energy use, TMUK engineers used a two-step process:

● Investigating whether a superior quality paint finish could be maintained with a wider range of tolerance in the paint booths?

● Finding the optimum way of using energy to keep within this wider operating window As a result of this work, TMUK has been able to reduce the amount of steam used in the paint shop by 40%, with a resulting decrease in CO2 emissions, thus supporting Toyotas commitment to minimize the environmental impact of its operations.

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