Talking sustainability storytelling trends with Toyota’s Becky Martin
Quick Connects are brief but beneficial conversations Mike Hower conducts with leaders in sustainability and ESG about a variety of sustainability communication topics. Watch the video recording of the conversation or read the transcript below.
The auto industry is going through a transformation as electric vehicle production proliferates and a changing regulatory environment pushes sustainability on all fronts. Yet amid all this change, communicating sustainability effectively has never been more critical for carmakers. Consumers remain equal measures curious and confused about the future of cars and the changes that must be made to ensure a low-carbon future. Meanwhile, in the wake of some high profile greenwashing scandals, the auto industry must tread carefully as they work to tell their sustainability stories in a way which earns consumer trust — or at least prevents them from getting sued.
To get a better grasp on the auto industry sustainability communication landscape, I recently connected with Becky Martin, sustainability engagement manager at Toyota.
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Mike Hower: Hey everybody. I'm here with Becky Martin, sustainability engagement manager at Toyota. Thanks for being here today.
Becky Martin: Thanks for having me.
Mike: Awesome. So, I know the auto industry has been going through a lot of change over the past couple of years, especially with the rise of EVs and lots of stuff going on the public policy front and on the consumer front. And also issues around greenwashing with certain automakers in Europe and whatnot. Today, I want to dive deep into some sustainability communication trends you're seeing in the auto industry and maybe you can tell us a little bit about how things are going at Toyota and how you approach sustainability communication.
Becky: Yeah, sure. We have decided in the past couple years to change our environmental report and the way that we do storytelling. So we used to include in our environmental report, all of our data, all of our impacts around our four focus areas, carbon, water, materials and biodiversity. And also in a report, we would tell stories about the good work that we had done. But that was too long winded and we wanted to be more succinct in our report. So now we just put mostly our impacts and our data and our frameworks for reporting for GRI and things like that in our report.
And then we tell our stories on our website. So our website now has in each of our four focus areas, a lot of different stories about the good projects that we're doing and photos and things like that. So, I think each piece of information speaks to a different audience, like the report, there's room for investors to be going in there and looking at our impacts and things like that. NGOs can go in there and see what we're doing, journalists, things like that. And then our storytelling is maybe more something that consumers could take a look at.
Mike: What are some of the biggest sustainability communication challenges you're seeing across the auto industry?
Becky: I think, especially for us, a challenge that we've had is explaining the strategy that we've taken in electrification. Toyota has chosen to pursue a portfolio approach. So, that means that we think that consumers really want to be able to purchase battery electric cars. They also want access to hybrids, plug in hybrids, fuel cell electric vehicles. Toyota has taken the stance that a portfolio approach is better and they want to meet consumers where they're at now. So, another important point is that we have talked about and issued lots of press releases, gone out to the public saying that there's not enough battery minerals out there for the electric vehicle transition.
We have this statement you call 90-6-1. And it's if you can put the same amount of lithium into 90 hybrids as you can into one battery electric car and six plug-in hybrids. So, we've kind of gone out on the circuit as a company talking about the lack of minerals for batteries and how it's important to try to reduce carbon as much as possible with the resources that we have.
Mike: That's interesting. So even if every single person in the United States wanted an EV, they couldn't physically get one right now. Let's say we had enough machines to make them, we don't have enough stuff to make the batteries.
Becky: Correct. Yeah. So how do you reduce carbon the most that you can with the materials that you have? And that's the approach that Toyota has taken with offering a lot of different options, electrified options.
Mike: I know you touched a little bit on this already, but can you tell us a little bit about how Toyota approaches its sustainability communication strategy writ large?
Becky: We have our environmental report, which actually we just published today. And then we have all these stories on our website and, in terms of the stories, we try to communicate that and have as good of a reach as possible on all of the stories that we tell. So we issue press releases through our own website and we publish them, as much as we can on our social media channels, but it's hard to get your message out to the public. It's hard to get our message to consumers about all the good work that we're doing in sustainability. So, I'm always open to hearing new ideas.
Mike: Now with all the new regulations coming out of Europe and in California, the stakes for communicating accurately and effectively are higher than ever. Do you have any tips for anybody out there communicating around anything in the auto industry and how to avoid greenwashing when talking about EVs or just auto sustainability in general?
Becky: We are very concerned internally about greenwashing and making sure that we don't greenwash as a company. We do want to make sure that the claims that we're making around carbon reduction are substantiated. And we are very careful about the way that we make our claims. We don't want to promise things that are not going to be delivered. So, we work very carefully with our legal team on the way that our messaging comes across, in our press releases, in our environmental report. So, I would just encourage everyone to be very careful about greenwashing and make sure that the information you're reporting is accurate.
Mike: Earlier we were talking a little bit about your career journey. Can you tell me what advice would you give to somebody struggling to find their way in a career in sustainability? You don't have to go into your entire journey, but maybe just what are some words of wisdom you would give to somebody who's looking to break into sustainability?
Becky: I would say that the key is perseverance and that it could be a long road, but it's one that if you're very passionate about this topic, which many people are, and we need people like that in this world to just stick with your goal and know that, there might be jobs that you should take along the, way that will help you build skills and get exposure to get to the place where you eventually want to be. My journey took me seven years to get a job in sustainability after I got my master's in it from the University of Michigan.
Mike: That is a long journey. I think a lot of us can relate. I had a similar circuitous path myself. All right, Becky, thank you so much for talking with us today. And for those who want to connect with Becky, I'll have the link to her LinkedIn in the notes. So thank you so much, Becky.
Becky: Thanks so much, Mike. Appreciate it.
