2030 Milestones towards 2050

Many companies are setting 2030 “milestone” targets as they head towards achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 (some also talk about 2040 targets, although they’ll likely revisit those as 2030 gets closer).

One company doing it’s part is Kinto.

Kinto is Toyota’s car-sharing spinoff, where you can hire cars by the hour or by the day. Today they announced that the Kinto fleet is currently 94% hybrid vehicles, which they aim to get to 100% in… someday… they didn’t say when.

But looking at the Toyota Sustainability Data Book (looks like a summary of all their 2030, 2050 and in-between targets), by 2030 they’re aiming for this:

Reduce CO2 emissions by 25 percent or more throughout the entire vehicle life cycle compared to 2013 levels by promoting activities for the milestones of New Vehicle Zero CO2 Emissions Challenge and Plant Zero CO2 Emissions Challenge, and with support from stakeholders such as suppliers, energy providers, infrastructure developers, governments and customers.

A 25% reduction in the next 8 years doesn’t sound like much, even less when measured from 2013 levels, but I see 2 interesting things:

1. That’s 25% through the entire lifecycle of the vehicle – which means it’s not just the parts that Toyota assembles, but it would seem Toyota are planning to influence external groups such as governments, suppliers, fuel producers, service centres, owners, and others in some way that will contribute to the overall reduction in emissions – that’s pretty bold.
2. Toyota has a reputation for setting and hitting bold targets, so setting it at a “modest” 25% could mean they intend to smash it, which means their reporting and outlook at that time will be very promising.

Mostly speculation with some low-level background digging on my part, but I love that companies like Toyota can set the bar for what we can report on. Influencing the lifecycle of your products could be seen as another way of looking at your supply chain – the sale rarely ends (or begins!) at your checkout.