Dealers
There are over 200 Toyota dealers in Australia, employing approximately 10,000 people. The dealerships are independently-owned businesses and Toyota Australia works with them to encourage environmentally responsible practices and to provide support and training to enhance the customer experience. Toyota dealerships are the primary interface between Toyota Australia and its customers.
Toyota Australia Responds to Queensland Floods
In late December 2010 and early January 2011, central and south rural Queensland were affected by widespread major flooding.
By mid-January, trading at 21 Toyota Dealerships in central and south rural Queensland had been affected by the floods. Dealers were affected by minimal to moderate facility and stock loss, with five dealerships directly affected by flood waters.
Sean Hanley, Regional Manager Northern Region Office said: "Our dealers did all they could to prepare for significant rain and flooding. Despite this, in many cases the towns that they service experienced extensive flooding, which affected trading."
Toyota Australia supported affected dealers, focusing on alleviating the business impact of the floods to the local dealer network. Toyota Australia and Toyota Financial Services each donated $100,000 towards the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal. Other substantial donations were made by the Toyota Dealer Network, Toyota Western Australia and other companies within the Toyota family. Toyota also provided cars to Queensland Police.
Encouraging Environmentally Responsible Practices
The Dealer Environmental Risk Audit Program (DERAP) supports the introduction of sound environmental practices in the dealer network - which consists of over 295 outlets in Australia.
DERAP tables
| Dealership | |
|---|---|
| Metropolitan | 75 |
| Rural | 135 |
| Outlets | |
| Branches | 68 |
| Dealerships | 210 |
| Satellite service sites | 17 |
| Total | 295 |
DERAP is a self-audit and awareness system that asks dealers to fulfil a number of requirements including:
- Nomination of a person responsible for the environment
- Approval of a policy and statement of compliance
- Proper management of hazardous waste
- Proper management of wastewater
- Management of ozone-depleting substances in accordance with legislation
- Completion of a yearly online self audit
As of July 2011, almost all Toyota dealer sites (over 99%) had successfully completed DERAP.
Toyota Environmental Dealerships (TED)
Building on DERAP, the Toyota Environmental Dealership program (TED) promotes environmental leadership in the dealer network. It consists of seven dimensions and seeks to integrate sustainable business practices into daily operations and to encourage dealers to continuously improve their environmental performance. This can be progressed through benchmarking their performance against other dealers and showcasing their environmental initiatives.
The seven benchmark dimensions are:
- Risk management and commitment
- Energy use (carbon emissions)
- Recycling and waste management
- Water use
- Environmentally-preferred purchasing
- Staff training and communications
- Social contribution and innovation
Dealerships can be awarded 3, 4 or 5 stars for their overall environmental performance. They can then display the relevant TED star logo and are encouraged to use point of sale communication and visual displays for customers.
Toyota Australia's goal is to have 25 per cent of national dealerships rated by March 2012.
Environmental Excellence Award
Toyota Australia also recognises the environmental commitments made by dealerships through its President's Environmental Excellence Award. To be eligible for this award, dealerships must be able to demonstrate their commitment through their improvement initiatives. Winners receive either a Silver Award (for the highest scoring dealership in each region) or a Gold Award (determined by a National Selection Committee from the Silver Award recipients).
Toyota Australia Awards First Australian Eco-Dealership
Patterson Cheney Toyota in Dandenong Victoria, has become the first car dealership in Australia to achieve a 5 Star Toyota environmental rating by adopting innovative ways to reduce its environmental footprint.
Launched in May 2010, the environmental benchmarking program, known as Toyota Environmental Dealership (TED), integrates environmental thinking and sustainable business practices into the daily operations of Toyota dealerships.
Toyota Australia President and CEO Max Yasuda said dealerships recognised the advantages and opportunities in showing leadership to address environmental issues. "Many Toyota dealers have already made progress in some areas of environmental management and TED provides them with a practical roadmap to achieve further environmental gains," said Mr Yasuda.
Patterson Cheney Toyota Dealer Principal Colin Uden said the program had opened his eyes to the countless ways small businesses could bring about positive environmental change. "Energy efficient cooling and lighting and water saving technology used to be reserved for the most environmentally conscious, but now it is widely available to the community and business sector. Many of the changes we've made to reduce our environmental footprint are so simple that I don't know why we didn't adopt them sooner," said Mr Uden.
To achieve a 5 star TED rating, Patterson Cheney Toyota formed an Environment Committee and adopted activities including replacing lighting with energy-efficient bulbs; recycling pizza boxes for employee clock-on cards; installing blinds and canopy screens to maximise shade in summer and natural light in winter; washing cars in water from rain tanks and teaching customers how to eco-drive. Their efforts have achieved a 15 per cent reduction in energy use and a saving of up to 70,000 litres of water, or 280 bathtubs of water per month, during the past 12 months.
Providing Support and Training to Dealerships
Dealers can participate in training via Toyota Institute Australia (TIA). Training is targeted at supporting dealers to increase profitability and sales, maximise staff efficiency, improve staff morale, and increase customer retention rates and satisfaction.
TIA offers Toyota dealers more than 60 training programs across all areas of the business from mechanical repairs to sales.
In 2010/11 the company introduced a program called Fix it Right which is designed to help dealers and their service operations staff understand and implement improved processes in the dealerships.
Recognising Excellence in the Dealer Network
Each year Toyota Australia holds an Excellence Award Program to recognise those dealers committed to levels of performance and customer satisfaction that exceed Toyota's benchmarks. The program is an opportunity to recognise the ongoing commitment, efforts and success of the company's dealer network and includes awards for customer service, sales excellence, business management, employee development, fleet excellence and environmental excellence.
Dealer Safety Awareness
Toyota Australia strives to build a strong culture of safety in its dealer network. The aim is to ensure that Toyota dealers provide all their employees and customers a safe working environment that actively promotes safety awareness and is one in which employees are engaged in safety promotion activities. During 2010/11, the company initiated a number of safety awareness campaigns.