Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announced August 8 the publication of "Sustainability Report 2007: A New Future for People, Society and the Planet" (Sustainability Report 2007), which summarizes the results of TMC's corporate activities in 2006 from environmental, social and economic aspects.
In the section on environmental aspects, initiatives were previously presented in the order of the vehicle lifecycle, namely development and design, production and logistics, and recycling, but for the Sustainability Report 2007, a topical approach has been adopted, employing the themes of energy and global warming, recycling of resources, substances of concern and atmospheric quality, in line with the Fourth Toyota Environmental Action Plan launched by TMC in 2006. The report also presents information on environmental management activities conducted to promote initiatives in each of these areas. This change in information disclosure has been made in response to the rising awareness of environmental issues in society.
With regard to energy and global warming, the report presents data on fuel efficiency improvements and reductions in CO2 emissions and describes a variety of activities from the perspectives of development and design, and production and logistics. Also included is information concerning TMC's cumulative sales of more than 1 million hybrid vehicles worldwide as of the end of May 2007.
This year's report also contains information on addressing atmospheric quality, whereby TMC increased the number of vehicles that meet the 2005 Exhaust Emissions Standards in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's Approval System for Low-Emission Vehicles. As a result, the number of vehicles that meet or surpass the Ultra Low-Emissions Vehicle level reached 97.7 percent of total production in 2006, up 1.4 percentage points from the previous year.
In the section on social aspects, information concerning TMC's activities in 2006 relating to the various stakeholder groups has been expanded and improved to incorporate information on the background, circumstances, history and concepts of those activities. Detailed information is provided concerning quality-related activities in relations with customers, and comments from stakeholders are presented in the initiatives of overseas affiliates.
In the section on economic aspects, the report has excerpts of financial data from the Annual Report 2007 for investors (scheduled for release at the end of August).
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TMC has been issuing an annual report of its environmental activities since 1998, but starting in 2006 it added social and economic aspects and changed the name of the report to the Sustainability Report.
Going forward, TMC plans to expand and improve its global information disclosure, including increasing the number of countries and regions that issue reports.
