Industrial  -  March 27, 2017

Air purifying billboards point to Toyota's hydrogen car

^{Photo of the air purifying billboard provided by Toyota.} 

Toyota on March 23 announced the launch of a creative and environmentally friendly advertising campaign for its hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the Toyota Mirai. 

The Toyota Mirai eco-billboard campaign "will help clear the air" in California while it runs from April 3 through May 28, the company said in a news release. Thirty-seven air purifying billboards in Los Angeles and San Francisco will create 24,960 square feet of pollution scrubbing surface and reverse the equivalent of 5,285 vehicles worth of nitrogen dioxide emissions per month. 

The Japanese automaker, which itself has aggressive emission reduction targets, says the "'catalytic converter' of billboards" uses a titanium dioxide coated vinyl to purify the surrounding air, and was created in coordination with Clear Channel Outdoor Americas.

When oxygen reacts with the energized titanium dioxide catalyst, NOx is converted to nitrate and removed from the air, according to the news release. The light-activated, smog-reducing billboards continue to purify the air as long as light, humidity, airflow and the titanium dioxide coating are present. 

"Toyota consistently searches for new environmental technologies across all operations. When Clear Channel Outdoor Americas brought us the opportunity, we saw it as a perfect match," Mark Angelacos, advanced technology general manager for Toyota Motor North America Inc said in a statement. "This new campaign delivers Toyota Mirai's 'vehicle of change' message on a medium that lives up to that promise."

The Mirai and the advertising campaign are reflective of Toyota's broader sustainability goals. Announced in October 2015 by parent company Toyota Motor Corp., the  2050 Global Environmental Challenge aims to reduce the negative impact of manufacturing and driving vehicles as much as possible, and is composed of six individual challenges across three areas: "Ever-better cars, ever-better manufacturing and enriching lives of communities."

Of the six key goals outlined in the challenge, three are directly related to CO2 reductions; the first is a goal to reduce new vehicle CO2 emissions by 90%, in comparison to 2010 levels, by 2050; the second and third to reach net zero emissions within Toyota's complete life cycle of operations and within its plants, respectively. 

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