Toyota PH continues carbon-neutrality thrust for Earth Month 2023

More than 50 volunteers are continuing Toyota Motor Philippines’ (TMP) efforts toward carbon-neutrality (CN) following the recent mangrove-planting activity in Lian, Batangas.

The local leading automotive distributor said that volunteers — gathered from its own workforce, parent company, subsidiaries, the Philippine National Police, and the local government unit (LGU) — participated in the aforementioned endeavor as part of the “All-Toyota Green Wave Project” (Green Wave).

As TMP explained in a statement, the project is an expansive and multisectoral effort towards carbon-neutrality and biodiversity conservation within its network amid the serious threat of global climate change.

Spearheaded by TMP president Atsuhiro Okamoto, the group was able to plant 5,000 mangrove propagules at Sitio Sulok that will reforest a coastline of the Verde Island Passage (VIP) — which is considered as the world’s Center of Marine Shorefish Biodiversity.

“TMP’s multi-pathway approach to CN goes back to Toyota’s commitments announced in 2015 under the global ‘Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050 (TEC 205).’ Under this, Toyota has outlined the Company’s targets to achieve Zero CO2 Emissions and Net Positive Environmental Impact by the year 2050,” the company president was quoted as saying.

“Today, we take time away from our usual workplace to be in harmony with nature, and push CN beyond the emission reduction efforts TMP has at its manufacturing plant and with the Toyota electrified vehicles,” he added.

In 2020, TMP adopted a 10-hectare mangrove plantation at Barangay Binubusan in Lian municipality. The program is under the national greening program (NGP) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that is aimed at “involving and enhancing private sector participation towards carbon neutrality.”

Further, TMP shared that it has already placed 20,000 mangrove propagules and is nearing the completion of the project with Lian’s Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office (MENRO) and fisherfolk association.

According to MENRO Lian Head Alvin Jonson, the project’s success is linked to the mangroves’ survival and maturity rate as the reforested areas are expected to later contribute to livelihood of fisherfolks and serve as a natural barrier to protect nearby communities from calamities such as storm surges.

In expanding the Green Wave to other ecological systems, TMP recently inked its partnership with DENR Region IV-A and respective LGU units to adopt new NGP sites: an eight-hectare mangrove plantation in Calatagan, Batangas, and a 50-hectare upland forest block in Siniloan, Laguna. TMP has four active NGP sites with a total of 108 hectares including the other two in Lian, Batangas and Maragondon, Cavite.

Photos from Toyota Motor Philippines

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