Page 270 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

246 Cha pte r T w e l v e

additional 50,000 tons were converted to energy at waste-to-energy
facilities. Some of the materials recycled at GM’s zero landfill sites
include 630,000 tons of scrap metal, 8,000 tons of wood, 7,500 tons
of cardboard and 1,200 tons of plastic. As a result of these efforts,
3.65 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions were avoided.
Additionally, using recycled by-products to make new products
reduces energy use and manufacturing costs, compared to using
virgin materials.

Toyota: The Future of Propulsion
Headquartered in Japan, Toyota employs about 300,000 people in 52
manufacturing companies worldwide, with annual sales of approxi-
mately 9 million vehicles under the Lexus and Toyota brands. Toyota
was an early pioneer in envisioning alternative forms of propulsion
that would satisfy both consumer expectations and environmental
concerns. As a result, the company introduced the first gasoline-
electric hybrid vehicles in the late 1990s, and by 2008, had sold over
1.5 million hybrid vehicles worldwide [7].
Toyota identified environmental issues as a management prior-
ity in 1992, the same year as the Rio Summit, and, in 1993, it launched
the Global 21 project, which aspired to set the standard in automo-
biles for the twentieth-first century. In 1995, a group led by Akihiro
Wada, a Toyota executive vice president, established a goal to double
the fuel efficiency of existing vehicles. It was clear that meeting this
goal would require hybrid technology, and, by that time, Toyota
engineers had developed power trains that featured both high fuel
efficiency and low emissions. At the Tokyo Motor Show in October
1995, the company unveiled a vehicle that combined an efficient
gasoline engine with an advanced electric motor and required no
charging. This was the forerunner of the Toyota Hybrid System for
passenger vehicles, which was first released in Japan in the 1997
Prius Sedan.
The second-generation Prius aimed to improve both fuel effi-
ciency and driving performance in order to encourage broader accep-
tance by mainstream customers. This required a complete re design of
the power train, including adoption of a high-voltage power-control
circuit to increase motor output. The new system required exhaus-
tive testing and went through seven prototype iterations. It further
boosted fuel efficiency by about 25%, to over 50 miles per gallon.
Toyota also decided to install the hybrid technology in sports utility
vehicles (SUVs), including the Lexus RX400h and the Toyota High-
lander Hybrid. By 2008, Toyota was firmly established as the market
leader in design and marketing of alternative-propulsion vehicles.
Not content to rest on its laurels, Toyota continues to explore
the design of “eco-cars” that minimize fossil fuel consumption and