Analysis

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) : 

Toyota belongs to Auto industry. The most material ESG issues are Energy Management, Waste & Hazardous Materials Management, Product Quality & Safety, Product Design & Lifecycle Management, Materials Sourcing & Efficiency, and Competitive Behavior. 

We analyze each of them in the follow table:

Shadow Reports 

There are some criticism placed on Toyota for the  braking issue and various technical problem. We also found an article about an issue that Toyota involved last year. Toyota recalled about 1.3 million cars because of a technical problem which could result to a fire (Phys.org, 2018). According to Toyota's representative, the problem came from the electrical wiring. Those recalled vehicles would have safety checks. According to the consumer reports.com, in the same year, Toyota has recalled 44,121 of its “2018 and 2019 Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks”. For the reason of “a faulty brake part could make it more difficult to come to a full stop”, which could have raising the risk of a crash (Barry, 2018)

GRI Reporting Evaluation 

Next, we focus on six GRI Guidelines "Stakeholder Inclusiveness, Materiality, Balance, Completeness, Timeless, Clarity" to evaluate Toyota's performance. The resource we collect is mainly from Toyota's Sustainable Data Book 2018 -- "Toyota's sustainability policy, Stakeholder Engagement, Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050, Environmental Management, and CSR Data" (Toyota.com, 2018).

Here is the evaluation we make:

Supply Chain Management

Toyota follows a sustainable supply chain management systems. However, we found out that in Toyota`s 2018 GRI report the company does not mention the SA8000 Certification. According to GRI report, Toyota`s manufacture plants are located all over the world, in order to minimize the transportation fee. The company has set up a complex supply chain system to ensure the supplier are not far away form the factory.

Mind Map

           A mind map is a diagram that helps people clearly understand the connections between elements. We used GoConqr.com to create a mind map for the Toyota Sustainability Initiative. (Here attached the link: https://team2gbus.blogspot.com/p/mind-map.html). The first branch circle of this mind map is based on the chapter topics we learned this semester. Then, we have the details of Toyota for each branch topic.

Circular Economy

There are three principles of circular economy -- design out waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use, regenerate natural systems. Toyota’s sustainability strategy “econohito” dedicates itself to achieving the goals the 2050 environmental challenge. Toyota has been making a lot of efforts to the environmental management -- no matter in products or the collaboration among companies, employees, stakeholders and customers. Every year, Toyota has the environmental data and environmental report to show to the public. To regenerate natural systems, it reduces the fuel emission by developing electric cars.

Creating Shared Value

The third table we have is the table about creating shared value.Three ways of creating shared value is: Reconceiving products and market; Redefining the productivity of value chain and enabling the local cluster. The table has listed examples of Toyota to create its own shared value. It also mentioned Toyota`s own sustainable plan, the Environmental Challenge 2050. The challenge has six major goals, which will help the company to become more sustainable. For instance, the company will reach zero carbon during the manufacturing process and during the whole lifecycle of their automobiles. All of those steps Toyota has made will help the company to take a further step in their environmental challenge plan.

Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a standard system analysis the influence of a product to the environment during its whole life cycle. (From its inputs and outputs.) According to Toyota`s 2018 GRI Report, the company has done LCA to its products in order to eliminate the CO2 emission. In Toyota's environmental challenge 2050, the company announced that their products will have no CO2 emission during it whole life cycle. The survey results show that Toyota is fulfilling their promises to public. The Camry LCA reports shows the latest model have decline the carbon emission up to 19%. The company also listed out different categories used to gather data and all of them are third party guaranteed.

Lean System

Toyota has used the lean system during its business process. For instance, the company follows a just-in-time inventory model. The company who follows a just-in-time inventory model will only produce when there is an order. Compared with workers in other inventory models, workers in this model has a higher working efficiency. Because there is no backup storage in the warehouse, they must complete tasks correctly at one time. Therefore, this kind of approach has decreased the cost to manage the inventory, the cost to hold its merchandises and the cost for human errors.

Green IT/IS and Sustainability Innovation

Toyota has set up recycling programs and innovated new sustainable products that are based on local laws to eliminate the company's energy cost. For instance, Toyota has applied energy saving bulbs on its cars and use solar panels to power its factories. Besides, in many Toyota hybrid vehicles, there is a driving mode named “ECO-mood ”. The intention of the ECO mode is to increase the “fuel efficiency by reducing acceleration levels”, which is similar to the energy star sign on HP`s PC or laptops (Schnell, 2017). Apparently, Toyota is currently using these programs and innovations to take a step further for its sustainable plan, the Environmental Challenge 2050.

IT Investment in Stages of Sustainability Maturity

Toyota is now in the third stage of developing its sustainable innovation systems (sustainable products & services). Certain IT prescribed to facilitate company`s innovation is the input of automatic robots (so-called high-tech production ballet) in its manufacturing plants (Hessman, 2014). Also, the innovation of Toyota Safety Sense (TSS) system that guarantee a safer driving condition.(Toyota.com) Besides, Toyota have provide the online shopping applications developed by Kony Solutions to its consumers. As an extension of Toyota’s sales team, this application provides a more convenient way for consumers to purchase Toyota vehicles.  

Toyota has applied the TSS system to its products. According to Toyota.com, “active safety features included on many new Toyota vehicles at no additional cost” (Toyota.com). These new IT features were designed to decrease the risk of having car accidents and protect passengers and residents passing by the vehicle. It is an infrastructure assets locate in the third stage of information system support. Because this service has provide certain abilities which makes the vehicle safer to drive and easier to operate.

According to the Hessman, Toyota has been applying robots which would increase efficiency in the manufacturing process in the past few years. It is an automate information technique locate in stage 2 because it shares workload from Toyota`s car-manufacturing workers, finish the task quicker within a more accurate level. (Hessman, 2014)

Moreover, Toyota also develop a mobile shopping application for its customers, which also benefit the customer service center by gathering enormous amount of data (Dan). Though this application, customers can purchase a Toyota vehicle anywhere, anytime from their smartphones. By doing that, Toyota has become “the only automotive manufacturer with content available on three mobile platforms” (Dan). It is both an informate and infrastructure asset IT locate in stage 3 because this application offers online shopping service. At the meantime,  it will gather data from customers and show feedback to the sales team.

Sustainable Product Design

Sustainable product design principles are principles which make the product design process more sustainable.  They are: Economic use of materials (use less material to build product or use recycling natural resources instead); Design for ease of repair or disposal(decline the repair expenses and use dismantlable parts instead); Life-cycle design and Innovative environmental product design(meet with consumer and environmental needs). Toyota has been working on applying these principles into its design process for many years. Recently, they have developed the new sustainable car model named 2019 Prius. Toyota has set up corporations with the dismantling company to replace those materials that can`t be recycled. Also, the company has been working on declining the use of “Petroleum-derived Plastics” and “Promote the reuse of rare resources and recycled materials” (Toyota Motor Corporation, 107). 

Toyota`s Crowdsourcing Approach

Toyota has tried crowdsourcing approach to eliminate the loss on its total profit. For instance, the company has teamed up with the Carma Project to fasten its “Takata airbag recall” program and get feedbacks from its consumers. According to the Idea Connection.com, Toyota`s airbag recall is one of the biggest and most complex recall in the American history. Because it is inefficient and time-costly for the customer service apartment to gather data from consumers, the firm is looking for external forces that can help current situation. Apparently this is not a voluntary work, the customer will get 25 “Carma coin” each time for spreading the recall information to their friends or relatives. And they can redeem those coins for valuable rewards in the future.