Ethics and Sustainability Challenges Faced by Toyota Motors

This report examines the ethical and sustainability challenges faced by Toyota Motors. It begins with an introduction to sustainability and a brief background of the company. The core of the report analyzes the social, environmental, and economic issues encountered by Toyota, including product recalls, environmental damage from production, and economic losses. The report highlights the impact of these challenges on the company's performance and reputation. It then provides recommendations for improvement, such as stricter quality control, investment in renewable energy, and increased consumer feedback. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of sustainability for business growth and success, reiterating the need for Toyota to address these challenges proactively. The report utilizes academic references to support its findings and recommendations.

Running Head: ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 0
Ethics and Sustainability
(Student Name)

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 1
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Theory of Sustainability..............................................................................................................................2
Background of Company.............................................................................................................................2
Challenges faced by Toyota Motors............................................................................................................3
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 2
Introduction
The drive for sustainability development is one of the defining issues of the early 21st century.
Most of the organization faces a sustainability issue that creates hurdles for them to grow in the
competitive market (Whitehead, 2017). Sustainability plays a vital role in society as well as for
the organization. Business sustainability refers to the management of social, financial as well as
environmental risks, obligations with other opportunities. Business sustainability entails
corporations to trail the values of sustainability development (Yeung et al., 2016). One of the
companies Toyota is also suffering from such issue. It faces lots of issues and problems.
In the following part, there will be a detailed analysis of the sustainability challenges faced by
the company in the recent scenario that affected the overall performance of the company to a
certain extent.
Theory of Sustainability
The sustainability describes as a form of society as well as an economy that is running for a
longer period of time as well as can be lived on a global scale. It is just not the trivial general
claim to take the social, environmental as well as economic policy serious independent of any
relationship in time as well as space and to strike a sound balance between such aspects (Lozano,
Carpenter and Huisingh, 2015).
Background of the Company
Toyota Motors was established in the year 1950 as well as Toyota car was firstly introduced in
the USA in the year 1957 that lead to the integration of sales of Toyota Motor. In total, the
company has more than 1500 cars and more than 32000 employees are working in the company.
It has expanded its business in the international market that made them, lead in an effective
manner. The company became most powerful as well as run Car Company (Monden, 2019).
From the year 2009, the company has started the use of certified user hybrid system and from the
year 2007, the company received complaint related to a few car models, on exploration. After
analyzing the issue it came into notice that there were manufacturing flaw in accelerator and
brakes due to which most of the people faced few accidents as well as died. It created a great

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 3
impact on the Toyota image company. Therefore, due to such case the company was required to
recall 878000 cars from the market that affect the market share of the company to a certain
extent (Maiorescu, 2016). Such issues will be discussed in detail in the following part.
Challenges faced by Toyota Motors
Social Issues
Social sustainability is the process of generating the sustainable successful place that promotes
the wellbeing by understanding what an individual requires for the places they live as well as
they work. Triple line Model is the framework of social sustainability. It has been adopted by the
company to evaluate the performance. In the recent, most of the companies ignore social
sustainability such as ignore human rights, unfair trade practices; ignore the health and safety of
well beings and so on (Ha-Brookshire, 2017). For instance, from the year 2007, it was stated that
some of the models Toyota Car had some issue in pedals, models, brakes, accelerators as well as
it was inexplicably getting trapped. Such fault created numerous life unsafe driving conditions
for customers. The Securities and Exchange Commission the Securities and Exchange
Commission, The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, as well as Los Angeles
city attorney, are also steered an investigation on the Japanese automaker. That is on the topmost
of investigation from federal regulators, Congress as well as the new media over Toyota’s
unexpected hastening concern (Nallusamy, 2016). The officials of government are also
concentrating more on the safety issue for the consumers as to whether the company fully
revealed its security glitches in its cars as well as whether be an extreme financial downfall for
the company. The company was forced to recall 878000 cars due to interruption burden. The
company has shown to be faithful to the Deming values by calling for a nationwide reminiscence
of selected models of its cars. It represents that the company is really worried about the safety of
its consumers. The company has taken various initiatives such as it underway receiving
information of “gas pedals” that is slow to increase after being trodden on. Contrives fixed the
problem in the Tundra that was elite up early in 2008, but trouble persevered in other models,
ultimately leasing Toyota to proclaim enormous remembrances for the floor mats as well as an
accelerator that might snare the gas pedal (Sukitsch, Engert and Baumgartner, 2015).
Environmental issues

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 4
Environmental sustainability is the rates of pollution creation, depilation of non-renewable
resources as well as the harvest of renewable resources that can continue indefinitely. In the case
it cannot be continued indefinitely then they are not sustainable (Dessein, Battaglini and Horlings,
2015). For instance after the earthquake occur In the year 2011, the company Toyota hold the
processes at all of its local plants due to the great damage occur to societal infrastructure that
also include supply of energy, systems of transportation, communication system, gas and water
system which is instigated by trembling or earthquake, scarcities of car parts from the dealers as
well as mutilation continued in certain subsidiaries of the company in regions that are related to
the disaster area. On March 18, 2011, the company began resuming the production in stages. The
natural calamities delay its production that resulted in long delays to delivers as well as that also
drops the sales of the company. The overall output production of the company was fell by 63%
in the year 2011. According to the latest information, the sales of the company are rose by 26%
(Amatulli et al., 2017).
Economic Issues
Economic sustainability includes creating economic value out of whatever the project or the
decision the individual or organization is undertaking. Economic sustainability refers to the
decision that remade in most equitable as well as the fiscally sound manner that is possible while
considering the other aspects of sustainability (Cavagnaro and George, 2017). Therefore, the
management of the company had decided to recall all the cars that have impacted on the
economic impact of the company. On 26th January the first decision has been taken to halt the
production of six plants in North America. The decision of the company is to mark a stoppage on
selling and on the production of the Toyota cars which had made a sustainable risk on the Toyota
Company. In 2009 there are around there is a sell-off car of about 60% and 60% in the
automobile industry. There is a projection that the company will lose around $ 2.47 billion the
monthly income because the sales in the cars were on halt and the individual dealer loses around
$1.75 million in a month. The economic news has cast a cloud that the shareholders of the
company that has caused the stock price to plunge. The economic recession for the company had
to hold the investment of around £88million. The company wanted to cut the production of the
cars by 15000 that the company had made the evaluation of asset verdicts that is probably to
make some months (Chikudate, 2019).

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 5
The bridge loan of around $ 2 billion had been taken by Toyota from the Tokyo because of the
recent sale figures that have indicated the Japanese largest company which is declined by 40% in
sales of motor vehicles that is the prevalent marketplace in the US. The Company has to
shrinkage its sales forecast from 10.4 million to the amount of 9.7 million (Mokhtar et al., 2017).
Recommendation
The initiative had been taken by the company to clean up the environment for around the
industrial plants or factories. The local residents will be benefitted from the initiative and also the
employee gets aware that they not only have to make eco cars but also they have to take care of
other factors. The production plant of the company also affects the environment to the certain
extent by releasing harmful gas such as toxic gas, biohazards in the ecosystem that is required to
be controlled by the company to make participation in saving the atmosphere in an efficient and
effective manner. Another initiative could be recycling of wastewater as well as diminishing of
the practice of matter that can imperil the ecosystem. The company can twitch new machinery
such as afforestation at plan site and renewable energy, to preserve the native network as well as
to contribute to the native communal, Energy and Resource Conservation Activities.
The corporation must start manufacturing of dissimilar braking system that will be required in
the case when normal breaks fail, such spare brake can stop the car. Through such a method it
can able to save the life of most people in an effective manner. The business must also confirm
as well as test the artifact before releasing it in the market. They must sternly focus on the quality
as well as each car must be verified from the ratified agency. Each staff must be given
appropriate training as well as must be appropriately managed. Zero tolerance of mistake must
be adopted in the workplace of the business.
The company must have misfortune management fund it will help the company to manage the
situation when natural calamities occur. And the funds should be properly utilized. The company
should provide a platform for consumers to share their review in the form of feedback. The
corporation must also twitch inventing new eco-friendly cars that will release less pollution in
the air. It must also stab to change the main industrial units to the dwelling where it is less cost
intricate as well as less natural disaster (Baumgartner and Rauter, 2017).

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 6
Conclusion
From the above analyses, it can be concluded that sustainability plays a vital role in the growth
and success of the business. One of the companies Toyota faces a challenge in maintaining
sustainability in its business that affects its growth and success to a certain extent. The company
has started receiving complaints from its consumers for brake fails and other issues due to which
some accidents occur. It affects the overall goodwill of the company to a certain extent.
Moreover, the company has faced natural calamitous that affect its production unit to a certain
extent, it fell down the overall sales of the company. The market share of the company is also
fallen down due to the reason the management decided to recall the cars from the market. The
company has lost huge revenue from the market. Therefore, it is required for the company to
focus on its sustainable mean to grow in the market.

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 7
References
Amatulli, C., Costabile, M., De Angelis, M. and Guido, G. (2017) Sustainability Across
Industries. In Sustainable Luxury Brands pp. 139-188
Baumgartner, R.J. and Rauter, R. (2017) Strategic perspectives of corporate sustainability
management to develop a sustainable organization. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.81-
92.
Cavagnaro, E. and George, H. (2017) The three levels of sustainability. London: Routledge.
Chikudate, N. (2019) Corporate Wrongdoing and Reputational Risk: A Genealogical Analysis of
Toyota’s Recall Crisis in 2010. In Responsible People pp. 259-277
Dessein, J., Battaglini, E. and Horlings, L. eds. (2015) Cultural sustainability and regional
development: Theories and practices of territorialisation. London: Routledge.
Ha-Brookshire, J. (2017) Toward moral responsibility theories of corporate sustainability and
sustainable supply chain. Journal of Business Ethics, 145(2), pp.227-237.
Lozano, R., Carpenter, A. and Huisingh, D. (2015) A review of ‘theories of the firm’and their
contributions to Corporate Sustainability. Journal of Cleaner production, 106, pp.430-442.
Maiorescu, R.D. (2016) Crisis management at General Motors and Toyota: An analysis of
gender-specific communication and media coverage. Public Relations Review, 42(4), pp.556-
563.
Mokhtar, M.F., Omar, B., Nor, N.H.M., Pauzi, N.F.M., Hasan, S. and Mohamed, W.W. (2017)
April. Environmental concerns of supply chain sustainability (SCS). In AIP Conference
Proceedings Vol. 1831, No. 1, p. 020045
Monden, Y. (2019) Toyota management system: Linking the seven key functional areas. London:
Routledge.

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY 8
Nallusamy, S. (2016) Lean manufacturing implementation in a gear shaft manufacturing
company using value stream mapping. In International Journal of Engineering Research in
Africa Vol. 21, pp. 231-237
Sukitsch, M., Engert, S. and Baumgartner, R. (2015) The implementation of corporate
sustainability in the European automotive industry: An analysis of sustainability
reports. Sustainability, 7(9), pp.11504-11531.
Whitehead, J. (2017) Prioritizing sustainability indicators: Using materiality analysis to guide
sustainability assessment and strategy. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26(3), pp.399-
412.
Yeung, A.S., Craven, R.G., Mooney, M., Tracey, D., Barker, K., Power, A., Dobia, B., Chen, Z.,
Schofield, J., Whitefield, P. and Lewis, T.J. (2016) Positive behavior interventions: The issue of
sustainability of positive effects. Educational Psychology Review, 28(1), pp.145-170.