Kevin Butt - Toyota’s Roadmap Doesn’t Stop at Carbon Neutrality

[00:00:00] Adam: Hello and welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:13] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire.

[00:00:20] Adam: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job or community and did something about it.

[00:00:30] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant some new ideas.

[00:00:38] Adam: Today, Dominique and I are joined by Kevin Butt. Kevin is the regional Environmental sustainability director at Toyota. What does that mean? He is responsible for the development of the environmental sustainability programs in addition to the regulatory and legislative development for all of Toyota's North America operations.

[00:00:55] Adam: Last time we got to hear from Kevin about his journey getting into this work. Everything from him joining a steel mill to being recruited at Toyota, developing out the programming. And really looking at a lot of the other ways that Kevin has helped build communication and consistency around the topic of sustainability and addressing needs, not just core at Toyota, but also with a wider perspective and a wider lens, especially moving past carbon, looking at things around water and biodiversity. 

[00:01:23] Adam: So, today we're gonna dig deeper into the topic of cars and manufacturing as we discuss Kevin's green champion story. Kevin, welcome back on.

[00:01:31] Kevin: Thank you. Good to be here again.

[00:01:33] Dominique: For our listeners who maybe aren't as familiar with the automotive space, can you help just describe a little bit of why it is so important that there's such a strong environmental conversation happening in an automotive manufacturing company?

[00:01:46] Kevin: Well, let's think about, you know, car industry is large industry. I mean, we have a lot of impact. From our suppliers, Tier 1's through Tier 2, 3, 4, 5, you know, and so there's a huge impact around the globe.

[00:02:00] Kevin: We're still very dependent on individual car ownership. So we're trying to make products that are around the globe that make the most sense. But with that comes the impact to air, water and waste and materials and biodiversity. So, you know, that's where we're responsible and we need to make change.

[00:02:16] Dominique: What do you think is the most important topic when thinking about sustainability and the work that you do?

[00:02:21] Kevin: Dominic, that's a great question. I mean, it's hard for me sometimes to pinpoint one aspect. You know, as we talked in the last podcast, it's hard to separate when you talk about climate, how do you separate water, waste, biodiversity out of those? They're all kind of combined. But when we think about, you know, everybody thinks about the automobile, it's always about carbon, carbon neutrality. So I think from that aspect there is some focus on that. Those of us that really understand sustainability know that we can't separate them, we have to address them all so that we don't create problems as we try to solve them. But clearly I think, reduction of carbon right now is important.

[00:03:00] Dominique: What's the biggest success you've seen so far in your over 30 years at Toyota when it comes to sustainability?

[00:03:07] Kevin: Sustainability at Toyota has been part of the DNA since day one when I started. You know, it was always a main focus. Let's not create waste, let's not do anything that is not useful to the creation of a product in the most efficient manner. And, as we've grown, I've seen our company move more towards that sustainability, the true sustainability. It's not just talking about sustainability. How do we make change? 

[00:03:33] Kevin: If you picture Toyota as this huge ship, it's got this rudder on it, we're actually, I'm seeing that rudder move, and moving more towards those more long-term visions of what sustainability could be and should be. 

[00:03:45] Kevin: Product design. You know, we're all moving towards electrification, but we're, Toyota's chosen a route that is creation of a portfolio of options that doesn't drive everybody immediately to a battery electric vehicle. It gives you the option to choose those things which make the most sense and most efficient sense in what you're gonna drive. I mean, let's think about a battery electric vehicle. Big battery box in it because people were afraid of running out of battery. So let's make a bigger battery, more intense battery that can take us longer down the road.

[00:04:20] Kevin: Well, when you think about that, that's a good idea but most people are driving battery, electric vehicles are driving them around town. They're not taking them on the long road. And so now you've had this battery that's huge, that you're using a quarter of its energy. So you've used all these materials, minerals for this big battery is underused. I think we have to continue to think about how do we develop vehicles for the right person in the right space? And that's why we've chosen the portfolio model. 

[00:04:50] Kevin: Toyota's had electrified vehicles on the road longer than anybody. And when you think about that, if you think about a hybrid vehicle or a fuel cell vehicle or any of the other options, you know, you've got to be able to use them in the most efficient way. And I think that's kind of a cool long-term vision, that it's not demanding radical change too fast because all the unintended consequences.

[00:05:12] Dominique: Is that where the interest in creating more hybrid vehicles versus EVs at Toyota comes from? Is that like a tangible way to think about moving in a sustainable direction?

[00:05:22] Kevin: Yes. I mean, you think about the demand that happened all of a sudden when we had to have all these electric vehicles. And all the change that took place in the mining operations and the shipment of those materials and back and forth across the globe of building cathodes in one space and then shipping it to be inserted in the battery in another location and the battery shipped back. That doesn't make a lot of sense. We should be building things locally and doing it in a way that makes the most sense. 

[00:05:49] Dominique: With what you shared about the pollinator project, and from hearing you talk about water, from my perspective, it sounds like you have a focus with your approach as a sustainability leader on regeneration more than sustainability. 

[00:06:01] Dominique: Can we maintain it, but also how are we building systems that are positive for communities and for our planet and for conservation?

[00:06:08] Kevin: Can you share some success you've had around water? Like what does that really look like to create a positive impact when it comes to water conservation, water quality, and the communities that it affects? Yeah, I think it goes back early to education. People don't know that they have an issue. Or do they care? 

[00:06:25] Dominique: You think about the average person or you thinking about someone who works like in manufacturing?

[00:06:29] Kevin: Oh, I think, we do a pretty good job of educating the people that work in our manufacturing world, that they know. 

[00:06:34] Dominique: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:06:35] Kevin: You know, because it's a bigger issue, right? How much water we're using on a daily basis? What's the water quality at the end of the day? All those things.

[00:06:42] Kevin: So I think there's some knowledge there, but I think there are a lot of people that just turn the tap on and expect it to always be there. And they expect when they turn the tap on that it's drinking water quality.

[00:06:52] Dominique: I was gonna say, if it should be clear.

[00:06:54] Kevin: Yeah. Right? No taste,

[00:06:55] Dominique: Yeah.

[00:06:56] Kevin: You know, it's gotta be great. And,

[00:06:57] Dominique: That's not nothing. I mean, we don't talk about that enough.

[00:07:00] Kevin: Oh, I agree. 

[00:07:00] Kevin: I've said, water I think is the biggest issue we're gonna face. I mean, I worry about water, I worry about the impacts that we're all having from overuse. 

[00:07:09] Dominique: Oh, like, this is maybe a tangent of a little bit of negativity for a second, but I don't mean to be there for too long, but can you help us worry about water? Like, can you help our listeners who don't feel worried about water, can you help us understand why we should be?

[00:07:23] Kevin: I think there's a lot of great examples out there, right? Let's go back a number of years ago now. Let's use Flint, Michigan as an example. People in Flint, Michigan were very confident that they turned the water on, they were safe to drink. Well, it wasn't because we hadn't planned in the future, right?

[00:07:36] Kevin: It's time we had lead lined pipes and things like that, we hadn't planned in the future. That's where we're at right now. Right? So many problems with just the infrastructure in water. Let's think about New York City. I understand, and I, you can fact check me on this, but I have been told that the amount of water that is leaked through the infrastructure in a single day is enough water for New York for two weeks. 

[00:08:03] Dominique: Wow. 

[00:08:03] Kevin: If we're relying on water and our aquifers, the Colorado River, all these spaces to grow our crops and we can continue to grow in population, there's a tipping point in there somewhere. And in order to grow all those crops, we continue to use pesticides, herbicides. So we're contaminating our food and our water as we do that. So to me, that is a big concern of mine and why we should be concerned. 

[00:08:28] Kevin: And again, I think that everybody needs to have an appreciation for water when they turn on that faucet. They're grateful for it, right? I don't think you sit and cry about it every day, but I think you should be grateful that you have that. There are people in this world that don't have that. They don't have water resource. The water quality's terrible. They've contaminated the rivers and you see people bathing in the water source that they're gonna have, and all the debris that's floating down from it.

[00:08:59] Kevin: And all the water pipes that from industry are being dumped into it. That's not sustainable. It's not good for us as a human species. We gotta get better. 

[00:09:08] Dominique: What made you know that? Well, how did you realize that?

[00:09:12] Kevin: The first statistic I ever heard that really focused me in this area was as I lived in southern part of Ohio, that our water resources, drinking waters come from the Ohio River. And then I read, and I was a lot younger, I read that the water source that I was drinking had already been transferred from mouth to toilet to mouth 28 times. I said, "Excuse me?" So we were recycling this water and reusing this water over and over again, and if that's the case, man. I'm ingesting, and if it's not clean, what's that doing to me?

[00:09:48] Dominique: Mm-Hmm.

[00:09:49] Kevin: I can remember it like it was a light bulb, just bam, you know? We have to be responsible for how we treat this water, because I don't want to drink something that came from up river that they weren't responsible for, nor do I want to contribute to somebody downstream. So to me, that was kind of the light bulb moment for me.

[00:10:06] Adam: So every year you put out a sustainability report at Toyota of, "Hey, here's your plan. Here's where going on." We'll link that in the show notes, but in there you have some great statistics about the clean water work that you've done. Can you share a little bit about your accomplishments?

[00:10:23] Kevin: I'll give you one really exciting example of that. You know, we're very concerned about areas where we might have operations that is in a water stress region. Well, one, we need to do a better job of not building manufacturing plants in a water stress region. But we're there, uh, in certain areas and one of 'em is in Mexico, in Baja, California, Mexico.

[00:10:41] Kevin: The water that we actually use for our facility there comes from the Colorado River. And it is piped from Mexicali all the way across about a hundred miles into a reservoir, sits on top a mountain, then put in an aqueduct and piped down to Tecate, Mexico, which is close to where our plant is. And that's the water we use.

[00:11:03] Kevin: Well come on, folks. Does that make sense? I mean, we're not the first, nor will we be the last to do something like that. But so when the decision was made, we need to recycle our water a hundred percent within this facility. There's no reason we should ever discharge anything. There'll be a little bit of makeup water that comes in just due to evaporative losses, but we should do something about this.

[00:11:25] Kevin: And so we have. We're recycling that water and without discharge. We may have on a very rare occasion, some discharge because we have more water than we need at the time, right? The makeup, we didn't need it as much. Or we've had a shutdown for a week, right? And we haven't been using any water, so we'll let some water go.

[00:11:41] Kevin: But you know, that to me is a responsible and responsive way to do a nice impact where you're not taking any more water than necessary from that and just recycling it so that technology should be used everywhere. So we're trying to, what we call Yokoten or take a known project in a process, create that success other locations.

[00:12:03] Dominique: Is that Japanese

[00:12:04] Kevin: That is a Japanese term. I speak a little bit of Japanese. Yeah. I can order beer. 

[00:12:12] Dominique: Is Japanese beer good?

[00:12:14] Kevin: Oh, Sapporo premium draft. I wish I could have it every day. It's really good beer. If you ever go to Japan, I recommend it. 

[00:12:21] Dominique: Is that your favorite place to visit?

[00:12:22] Kevin: Well, there's still some on my bucket list that I like to go visit, but I love Japan. 

[00:12:26] Kevin: Back to the work at Toyota. You've done some great things. 

[00:12:29] Adam: What are some of the challenges that you have in steering such a big ship in a positive direction?

[00:12:34] Kevin: You know, a large corporation has a lot of initiatives, right? They have a lot of activities that they work on, keeping customers satisfied, building the products that they look at. One of the issues that we have with such a large company is you think about getting all the right people in the room when you try to solve something holistically, and get them focused on that, it's a little difficult. One of the things that we've done, I started a quarterly environmental meeting, enterprise wide, 20 years ago maybe. And when I started that it was, we would have maybe 15 people that would show up for that.

[00:13:08] Kevin: The last quarterly meeting I had, we had 70 people in the room across the enterprise, including accounting and finance, including engineering and R&D. All of them are there in that room now, and we begin to help that, we manage this in five year increments. I'd like to think 5, 10, and 15 years out.

[00:13:30] Kevin: So we have a five year environmental action plan that we all gather together across the enterprise now that comes up with these targets, with that long term target in vision. 

[00:13:40] Kevin: So this five years we're gonna do this much to get us closer to that longer term target. So that's helped a lot of that issue. So the collaboration, communication, upfront knowledge about what it's gonna cost, or are we gonna make money doing it? Let's not forget that you can make money in sustainability, folks. I always hear this, "Well, it's gonna cost me x." Okay. It might in certain areas. But I can tell you right now that through the sustainability programs that we're doing, we're bringing millions of dollars back into the company.

[00:14:11] Kevin: And most of that's from energy, right? Moving to green energy and utilizing virtual power purchase agreements and things of that nature. And that's bringing money back in. So it's possible. Then you can use that money for other things, right? 

[00:14:24] Adam: Was that a difficult challenge, shifting from being a cost center to being a profit center?

[00:14:28] Kevin: We didn't know how to accept money in this company. It was difficult. Creating a profit center took a long time with accounting, finance. But we had checks that were coming in. We had to find someplace to put 'em. I was willing to put 'em in my personal bank, but that didn't happen. 

[00:14:42] Dominique: So kind of you. 

[00:14:43] Kevin: Yeah. I was just trying to help out.

[00:14:44] Dominique: You're such a helper. 

[00:14:45] Kevin: Yeah. So, uh, but now that's, that was a bit difficult. We've overcome that and it's allowed us to, uh, continue to move forward and try to create better ways to do this business.

[00:14:56] Adam: Now, is that the mindset shift that you see other companies need to make?

[00:15:00] Kevin: Yeah, I think that's a fact. I think people have to get past the idea that anything that revolves sustainability is going to detract from my job and our focus of the company. And the focus is always what's the product? What's its quality? How much am I gonna make on that kind of attitude?

[00:15:15] Kevin: So we have to get past that. Quite frankly, sustainability, people ought to be working themselves out of a job over time. It ought to be embedded in every aspect of every design, everything that everybody does, because if you're doing that, it's more efficient, right? There's less waste, there's less problems involved in that.

[00:15:33] Kevin: That's the mindset that has to be embedded, from the top down, right? So everybody that on the floor who's putting a widget into the next widget needs to understand what their impact is to the environment. And what they can do better to make it more sustainable. Once we get that kind of mindset, I think, you know, that's a hard thing to do.

[00:15:52] Kevin: It's hard to get people interested. And I hope that what we teach at Toyota, I hope people are taking it home. That's what you always aspire to. They learned it there. They took it home. They apply it. Their kids now do it. And most of the time kids are telling their parents not to use, you know, water bottles and stuff, but, that's what we hope. And then the community learns from it. And so it should be growing at a rate like that. I mean, I'm trying to, I know realism, uh, is, and, and that's not happening quite yet, but I mean, that to me is how it should happen.

[00:16:20] Dominique: And kind of like to go further into how, how do you do that? How do you begin to do that? When you're thinking about other organizations wanting to follow suit of like really seeing this actualized in their company from the person who puts in the widget up to the executives to understand and appreciate how integral sustainability mindsets need to be into building a sustainable business, how do you begin? Is it education?

[00:16:46] Kevin: Oh, I think it's education and proof product, right? It happened. I can show you it happened. You know, here's how we did it, right? And there are failures out there too, right? And you gotta learn from those failures that it didn't work. But to me it's, if you see it, easier to believe.

[00:17:04] Kevin: I think there are real life world experiences that people need to share and people need to talk about. for us at Toyota, if we had a good project, I wanna share that through suppliers partnership to the other auto industry members, 

[00:17:16] Dominique: So that's like storytelling around. 

[00:17:18] Kevin: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:17:19] Dominique: Things that you've seen.. 

[00:17:20] Kevin: Exactly. We gotta get over this competitive thing too, in sustainability. You know, a lot of people are, "Wow, I wanna put a stamp on my product that I'm green." Really? Are you now? What's that definition? What's the standard that you measured that by? And I hope a lot of people are moving in that direction. I'm not trying to discourage that, but that shouldn't be a competitive thing.

[00:17:43] Kevin: I'm not a marketing person and I know that whatever sells product is big to move product. But when it comes to sustainability and what we're doing for our water and our air and our, and the biodiversity, those should be things that we share commonly. And it shouldn't be a surprise that somebody makes a green product. That should be the standard, right? And I realize, again, being a realist that not everything is gonna be totally green. There may be things for years and years and years, it's gonna be tough to be able to, you know, call it a green product. But we have to strive to move in that direction. That to me is the important step.

[00:18:18] Dominique: Something else we haven't talked about yet too is just like you do make a product that consumers purchase as their a daily vehicle. How would you talk to the average automotive consumer that wants to support and put their money as a vote behind the correct sustainability work that's going on in the automotive space? Like how would you advise them to be an active team member?

[00:18:43] Kevin: Oh, man. That, that goes right back to education, right? It's a complicated issue when you talk about building a car or any other way, refrigerator, whatever it is, it's complicated. And then to be able to believe what you might read about that product is also a challenge, right? So I think it comes down to, you know, you have to do that hard research. 

[00:19:05] Dominique: There's so many choices. There's different auto motive makers. There's getting a preexisting car, getting a new vehicle, EV hybrids, and it's so hard to know if you're making a choice you believe in. 

[00:19:17] Kevin: To me, recognizing that you have a choice is the right place to start. You may not make the best choice based on information that you have available to you, but if you're making those choices and you're moving in that direction, it's gonna help.

[00:19:31] Kevin: And eventually I think there's gonna be a commonality about how we describe products, you know, and how we describe what's really sustainable that will add value to help people make right decisions. I mean, there's so much we can do right now. There's so much low hanging fruit that people can do without getting really complicated into this, right? And, you go back and talk about plastic, right? We can't do without plastic right now. Just think about the impacts of not having plastic would mean to the way we buy groceries. I mean, unless you're in a cute little European town where it's downtown in the marketplace where you go get it every day fresh, that's the way to do it. So, we gotta start somewhere. So people have to embrace those things that are simple first, and then move right into the more complicated areas. And those of us that are making products need to make it less complicated. It needs to be easy over time to what we're doing.

[00:20:22] Adam: Before we wrap up, one area that we haven't touched on that I'm just really curious about is on materials. Like we've talked about carbon, we've talked about water and biodiversity. With that materials, you've done a lot of work on recycling, specifically batteries at Toyota and had some success with that. Can you share a little bit about what has gone into that?

[00:20:44] Kevin: At Toyota we spend $1 million every hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in research. And a lot of that is in materials and how do we make our vehicles better, safer, but less toxic, with less toxic materials. And a lot of things over the years, you know, we've gotten rid of hexavalent, chromium, we've done a lot of things across the auto industry from a chemical standpoint that makes a lot of sense. We need to expand that into, you know, people talk about leather, right? Leather is a big issue in an automobile. How do we make that sustainable? So it's about every design decision that's made needs to take into account what chemicals are in it. We have a chemical ban list at Toyota, which is enormous. There are certain things we just don't allow, right? And I'm not saying that's any different than any other auto company. I don't know of what their band list is, but I know we have one. And I think that's extremely important, to be able to upfront say, we're not gonna do this.

[00:21:45] Dominique: How old is that list?

[00:21:46] Kevin: It's been around since I've been at Toyota 32 years. So I, I don't know how long before that.

[00:21:51] Dominique: This whole issue of chemistry, which has been not talked about enough, you know, I've become a label reader over my life time. It's amazing. What people don't know about what we use in our products. That should be another thing that's pretty transparent to every human being. What chemicals are in this? And how can we stop using them? Chemistry's made the world a lot better place. I don't wanna be misconstrued. 

[00:22:13] Dominique: I was gonna say, my dad would love to hear you say that. He's a chemist. 

[00:22:16] Kevin: Yeah. 

[00:22:16] Kevin: What is sustainable, right? That's their conversation.These chemicals may not be sustainable as they continue to be lifetime chemicals. And the microplastics and nanoplastics. 

[00:22:28] Dominique: I think it's really interesting and, and very powerful to connect sustainability with STEM and actually understanding what our options look like because we can't just understand the environment and conservation and how things impact the environment 'cause you'll stand there forever not knowing how to change the system. So I think it's very interesting to hear how you've gone backwards into like what things are made of and where they're coming from to resolve for new options. 

[00:22:49] Kevin: That's the very beginning,Chemical engineers, right? You know, organic chemists, all these folks are the folks that really can help and sway these things. For years, you know, we've talked about the EPA that controls the chemistry that goes into the environment to protect us humans and our health. Sometimes we lose sight of that and there's a lot of complaint about that. There's a lot of lobbying that goes on about that. That's an area that needs some strong focus.

[00:23:14] Dominique:  what do you find the most fulfilling in the work that you do?

[00:23:16] Kevin: Watching change. When you can change something and it sustains in that change, I feel pretty good about that. I feel pretty good whether it's in the community, whether it's in one of the departments in the company. If you make change and it's going the right direction and you've done that through the collaboration with a lot of people who now understand why, yeah, that's a good day. 

[00:23:35] Adam: How can people find the sustainability report that you put out and support the work that you're doing?

[00:23:41] Kevin: Oh, the easiest way. It's a Toyota North American Environmental Report website. It's dot com. 

[00:23:46] Kevin: And you can go to that and then you'll find a link in there also, so it'll give you all the data in that book that, you know, has all those numbers in it. But you also have the website that tells some of these stories, uh, that I've been talking about in some videos that help show some of the accomplishments that we're doing

[00:24:02] Adam: We're just so glad that you were able to come on and join us today. For me, I, I love this theme of sustainability is one about communicating, it's about listening and not assuming that you have all the answers, but always kind of allowing yourself to continue to grow. That came up in a lot of different areas of what you spoke about.

[00:24:22] Kevin: I also feel like you've never, at one point in this conversation, led on that you're an expert in every area. I think that it's very powerful how much you clearly do know about the problem, the options, the industry, but the way that I think you listen and bring in other voices constantly is one, a very welcoming approach for anybody to be able to take. I think that's just very powerful as a solution approach. But then also I think it speaks a lot to like humility you have in the work that you doThank you. Appreciate that.

[00:24:52] Adam: also that kind of looking down the road Whether that's taking a look at your water usage in a factory and being like, "Hey, how can we make this fully contained so that we're not shipping all this water from the Colorado River?" like that sort of foresight. And then empowering people, like educating them on here's what you can do so that they know and they can just do it as part of their work. 

[00:25:11] Dominique: one last thing about our podcast is we really wanted to showcase that sustainability is not just one thing. Sustainability is not just the stigmas or the myths that come along with what it's supposed to look like. And I, I just appreciate how much you've weaved in different sides of what it means to talk about environmental sustainability and all the different kinds of expertise and touch points that there are just in your work, but in sustainability broadly too. I appreciate how much color you added there around the kind of role that anybody plays in such a big system.

[00:25:42] Kevin: Appreciate that. I also appreciate you having me here, right? To, to be able to tell this story. And for you and what you're doing, I mean, you're part of the education, right? You're telling this story and you're getting it from a lot of different people, right? And to me that's powerful as well. So thank you for what you're doing and good luck.

[00:26:00] Dominique: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We are here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:26:10] Dominique: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can be just on our website, thegreenchampions.com. Our music is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll be digging to our sustainability success story like Kevin's in our next episode.

​