Toyota, Botanists Improving Habitats at U.K. Plant

Toyota forms a partnership with the legendary Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to transform its U.K. factory and office locations into thriving, sustainable habitats for plants and wildlife.

At the Japanese automaker’s Burnaston manufacturing plant in Derbyshire, the aim is to create a green grid, showing how a working industrial site successfully can support biodiversity through environmental land management and secure a green legacy without compromising the cost or efficiency of its core business.

The 580-acre (235-ha) Burnaston site, 135 miles (216 km) north of London, contains areas of meadow, grassland, wetlands, woods and hedgerows, and is home to more than 400 plant and animal species, some of them rare and protected.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, in the London suburb of Kew, which celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2009, has an outstanding living collection of plants and a world-class herbarium. It has an international reputation for its scientific expertise in plant diversity, conservation and sustainable development. It is home to Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, the largest wild-plant seed bank in the world.

Working with Kew’s experts in plant science, Toyota plans to create even more natural habitats, restoring more than 56 acres (23 ha) by 2020.

The project already has revealed an area of ancient meadowland on the site, from which large quantities of grass seed have been harvested, dried and stored in Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, ready for planting in other locations.

Toyota and Kew have launched a 10-year restoration project, with Kew’s team involved in the landscape planning and providing expertise in horticulture, land restoration, seed quality and project implementation.

Tony Walker, deputy managing director-Toyota Mfg. U.K., says the project marks a radical change in the way the site is managed.

“We are able to introduce these measures side by side with our essential business of making cars, developing ecology, nurturing biodiversity and extending our commitment to environmental leadership,” Walker says in a statement.

“The legacy of this project will be to show that a manufacturer, working with Kew, can create an ecologically rich environment that connects with its local surroundings and community. We hope others will see what we have done and adopt the same approach.”

Extensive new landscaping and planting also is being carried out at Toyota U.K.’s sales and marketing headquarters in Surrey. With support from the Surrey Wildlife Trust, the focus has been on identifying and using local native plant species and establishing them on the Toyota site.