TOYOTA RANKED AS THE WORLD’S LEADING GREEN BRAND

Toyota is the world’s greenest brand, according to a new global survey from the international brand consultancy Interbrand. 

The first Best Global Green Brands, published this week, takes into account environmental performance coupled with public perception of a brand’s environmental sustainability – its “green profile” – to produce a Green Performance Score.

Based on data collected from the world’s leading markets, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Japan, Brazil and India, the report gives Toyota a top score of 64.19 points, ahead of 3M in second place.

The Interbrand report says Toyota is “a leading example of making the environment a core management priority, while also engaging in a meaningful way with audiences around the world”.

Toyota’s market-leading development of full hybrid technology is a key contributor to Toyota’s strong green performance, according to the report, notably with Prius – now in its third generation. Since 1997, Toyota and Lexus have amassed more than 3.2 million hybrid vehicle sales worldwide.

Announcing the results of the report’s findings Jez Frampton, Global Chief Executive Officer at Interbrand, said green initiatives may be among the most visible and easiest to claim as corporate citizenship increasingly becomes the norm, and yet it can be the most challenging to deliver performance against.

“We believe the strongest green brands lie at the intersection of performance and perception: their ability to build stronger connections with consumers as a result of actionable and credible environmental practices,” he said.

In reaction to the findings Calvyn Hamman, Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM), said the international accolade was further proof of Toyota’s “total commitment towards attaining environmental sustainability”. 

“One of the core principles in Toyota’s global vision is to develop sustainable mobility solutions in harmony with the environment,” said Mr Hamman. “Toyota is very clear in its philosophy – to respect the planet through innovative new products, aiming to exceed customer expectations.” 

The “Best Global Green Brands” report’s measurement methodology was developed by Interbrand together with Deloitte, with the Green Performance Score designed to be applicable across differing industries. While compiling the report, Interbrand also interviewed some 10,000 consumers across 10 of the world’s largest markets to gauge consumer perceptions of a brand’s green performance. Performance data were sourced from publicly available information as well as data from Thomson Reuter’s ASSET4.

Interbrand’s Best Global Green Brands is available in full, along with expanded content and methodology, on www.interbrand.com.

Captions:

1,2. The Toyota Prius and Auris Hybrid are prime examples of Toyota’s philosophy to respect the planet by developing innovative new products aimed at exceeding costumer expectations.

3. The Tsutsumi plant in Japan where the Toyota Prius is built is one of the greenest automotive plants in the world.

29th July 2011