As awareness about our impact on the world grows, so does our concern about where our products come from. Understanding how a business operates and what its core values are allows us, as consumers, to choose a company that aligns with our personal beliefs. As a leader in the automotive industry, Toyota is an excellent example of progress toward sustainability. Production of vehicles like the 2023 Toyota BZ4X, the 2023 Prius Prime, and the 2023 Highlander Hybrid show Toyota’s shift to environmentally conscious manufacturing.
Toyota’s Beyond Zero initiative focuses on negating its negative environmental impact and creating a positive one. By focusing on multiple areas of conservation and sustainability, Toyota is doing its part to change the world. The line-up of electrified vehicle options is just one of those ways they are doing their part, offering a variety of low-emission vehicles to fit any lifestyle. The BZ4X showcases many of Toyota’s steps forward, offering a vehicle that goes Beyond Zero. But before we explore how the BZ4X encompasses Toyota’s ideologies, we need first to understand Toyota’s plan for sustainability and positive environmental impact.
Four Keys To A Better Today And Six Goals For A Better Tomorrow
In 2015, the United Nations presented the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals. With the cooperation of businesses like Toyota and other influential groups, the UN hopes to make a serious impact on our environment, turning back the time on the damage it has suffered. Through the Sustainable Development Goals, Toyota identified four areas of focus that directly impact our environment and directly relate to their company. Toyota can build a more sustainable company by working to improve its practices in each of these four areas. The four areas include Carbon, Water, Materials, and Biodiversity, and they also play a part in Toyota’s Environmental Challenge 2050.
The Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050 consists of six goals, or challenges, that focus on going Beyond Zero. One of the challenges is to reduce CO2 emissions that result from new vehicles. The goal is to reduce it by 90%, using the emissions levels produced in 2010 as their starting baseline. Ideally, this initiative will help reduce air pollution and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Taking this a step further, Toyota also hopes to eliminate CO2 emissions from their business operations and the emissions created by the companies they use as suppliers.
Recycling materials, conserving water, and protecting water sources are two more of the challenges awaiting Toyota. Recycling materials will better utilize what is on hand, avoiding the depletion of essential materials. Lastly, Toyota hopes to lessen its negative impact on nature, becoming less of a burden and more of a support for species on the brink of extinction, natural habitats, and more. These final challenges provide a broad conservation plan that can make a huge impact.
Partners In Conservation
One way that Toyota is achieving its goals is by encouraging its suppliers and dealers to follow suit. Toyota maintains Green Supplier Requirements, which dictate certain standards in their efforts to improve their environmental impact. Toyota has teamed up with Manufacture 2030 to support their supplier requirements, a platform that helps track sustainability performance. This is important because Toyota insists that their suppliers report their CO2 emissions annually and that they work to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 2%. Manufacture 2030 also serves as a platform for information sharing, letting suppliers share best practices with others from the industry.
Toyota continues beyond there, providing guidelines to their suppliers to improve in other vital areas. Toyota’s guidelines encourage suppliers and distributors to devise an initiative to reduce water usage while tracking what they use. Other guidelines discuss forming an initiative to cut back on material waste, create a recycling program, and reduce their use of exhaustible resources. They even encourage their supply partners to work carefully around nature, suggesting they preserve or even positively add to animal habitats.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
It is one thing for a company to state its values; it is another for a company to put those values into action, and that is what Toyota did with the electrifyingly sustainable 2023 Toyota BZ4X. As Toyota’s first all-new battery electric vehicle, the BZ4X is leading the way for Toyota’s Beyond Zero line-up. This new type of vehicle is designed to change how we drive, positively impacting our environment.
A unique platform has been designed specifically for the Beyond Zero line of electric vehicles. The e-TNGA platform tucks the battery away, incorporating it into the chassis. The result is improved performance and handling, a fantastic leap forward for the EV community. Toyota has now opened the door to a whole array of EV vehicles that can be built on this one-of-a-kind platform, introducing more potential for other performance-style vehicles.
The production of a new EV line works into the challenge for Toyota to cut down emissions that result from new vehicles. Toyota has already begun to reduce its carbon footprint, and the new BZ4X is just another step towards that goal. Plus, the latest EV SUV is also convenient for consumers, offering several ways to charge up. Whether you charge through an outlet at home, have a station installed, or charge up at a station, keeping your EV on the road is a snap.
The Beyond Zero vehicle can achieve up to 252 electric miles, depending on which model you choose. The SUV is available in two trims, the XLE, and the Limited, and both are available as front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. Front-wheel drive models have a more extended range than the all-wheel drive models, but the AWD Limited can still get 222 electric miles. The EPA estimates that by driving the BZ4X, consumers can save up to $900 a year by eliminating the need for gas. More importantly, switching to an EV reduces the need for fossil fuel or other non-sustainable fuel sources.
No Sacrificing For Sustainability
EVs and hybrids have come a long way since they first gained popularity, and the BZ4X is proof of that. Just because the Toyota BZ4X runs off battery power alone does not mean you have to sacrifice performance. AWD models are equipped with X-Mode, which offers improved traction and control. Drivers can enjoy ECO and Regular drive modes, along with Snow/Dirt mode, Deep Snow/Mud, and a special Grip Control drive mode.
Thanks to the design of the battery, the BZ4X has a roomy and spacious cabin that can seat up to five. The design is ideal for families, providing plenty of cargo and passenger room. This, combined with all of the latest safety features, driver assistance features, technology, and connectivity, the BZ4X is the whole package.
A Company With Goals
Choosing a vehicle is not just about choosing a mode of transportation; it is also about choosing a brand. Each brand contributes to or impacts this world in one way or another, and how that brand determines to impact the world matters. The years that Toyota has put into sustainability research and its efforts to create a positive impact on the environment are paying off, and not just for them. Their move towards a cleaner tomorrow offers us technology and advancements that are bettering today. A new compact battery is just one example of how their efforts are working for us already.
The 2023 Toyota BZ4X is an excellent option for those looking to improve their footprint and is a symbol of a company with ideologies worth standing behind. From how it is manufactured to how it drives, the all-electric BZ4X is a car ready to move us into the future. Intending to expand the Beyond Zero line, I am excited to see what Toyota has in store.
