Protecting the environment and creating a sustainable South Africa has always been one of Toyota South Africa Motors’ top priorities. Various programmes have been developed to reduce the impact on the environment at the manufacturing plant in Durban as well as operations in Johannesburg.
To further support the goal in creating a sustainable South Africa, Toyota introduced a programme to ensure all the dealers were participating in their quest to protect the environment.
“The Dealer Environmental Risk Audit Programme (DERAP) was established to guide the dealers in implementing several fundamental countermeasures to protect the environment. DERAP also tracks and measures the dealer’s progress and performance on the prescribed fundamentals of the Audit programme,” says John Oliver, Vice President Customer Service.
The Dealer Principal is ultimately responsible for their dealer’s performance when it comes to implementing the five fundamentals of the programme including assigning a staff member as the person in charge of Environmental projects. The other fundamentals include displaying a waste treatment declaration in the dealership, treating waste in the correct way in terms of legislation, proper water drainage systems at the dealership, and correct refrigerant recovery methods.
All Toyota dealers across Southern Africa are required to have all the fundamentals implemented in their dealership. When the fundamentals have been implemented and are being utilised, the dealership is awarded ECO1 status.
“We are proud of our dealer’s ECO1 status. 95% of all our dealers currently have ECO1 status. ECO3 status is ultimately where we would like all our dealers to be. We thank our dealers for their continued hard work with regards to our environmental policies. We will continue to support them in the quest to create a more sustainable South Africa,” adds Oliver.
ECO3 is a voluntary programme which includes the fundamentals as well as other programmes that the dealers need to prescribe to. ECO3 is the national legal standard for all dealerships. As of August 2014, 89 Toyota dealers have achieved ECO3 status.
The current DERAP programme was established in 2004. Each dealer is audited twice a year to ensure they comply to the fundamentals of the programme.
“Throughout the entire organisation Toyota lives by the 3R’s – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Through environmental campaigns we aim to reduce our energy, water, waste, hazardous substances and paper. We reuse as far as possible and we recycle everything we can. All paper, cans, plastic and glass is separated at source and sent to recycling plants. As a last resort, we dispose ensuring the disposal method is in line with legislation,” concludes Oliver.