Environmental Leader

By 2011, Toyota Motor Corp. expects to have 100 environmentally friendly dealerships — or just under 10 percent of its U.S. dealer network, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Toyota outlines features of its green dealerships in its own prototype store design, which includes such things as lifts lubricated with vegetable oil, geothermal heating systems, and the recycling of car wash water for the washing of organic duds.

A Toyota dealership in Rockwall, Texas recently became the first dealership to be awarded LEED Gold certification.

Waste reduction and recycling are topics of Toyota’s 2007 North American Environmental Report, which outlines the company’s progress toward meeting goals set forth in its Environmental Action Plan.

Toyota isn’t alone. The LaFontaine Automotive Group, which recently built a multibrand auto dealership in Highland, Michigan, invested $2 million in “green” initiatives ( see video below). General Motors is talking to almost all of GM’s U.S. dealers about environmentally friendly makeovers, according to the Journal.

The trend in green car dealerships was spotted last year with MSNBC reporting that at least 16 green car dealerships that offer multiple alternative vehicles had opened in 10 states.

Many have climbed on board and in a big way. Detroit News reports on a $15 million GM dealership with almost $2 million in green extras set to open in early June.

Last year, The National Automobile Dealers Association joined the EPA’s Energy Star Challenge and asked its 20,000 member dealerships to reduce energy use at more than 43,000 facilities nationwide by 10 percent or more.

Here’s a WSJ video on the moves towards green dealerships:
And here’s a video from Toyota on its green dealerships: