[Bumblebee86]

Toyota has created two flower species that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere.

The flowers, derivatives of the cherry sage plant and the gardenia, were specially developed for the grounds of Toyota’s Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan. The sage derivative’s leaves have unique characteristics that absorb harmful gases, while the gardenia’s leaves create water vapour in the air, reducing the surface temperature of the factory surrounds and, therefore, reducing the energy needed for cooling, in turn producing less carbon dioxide (CO2).
The two new plants are part of a wide-ranging plan to reduce the impact of Prius manufacture on the environment. Since 1990, the plant has reduced CO2 emissions by 55 per cent.
The plant at Tsutsumi has solar panels on its roof to generate electricity and special photocatalytic paint on its exterior walls to absorb harmful airborne gases including NOx and sulfur oxides (SOx).

Inside the plant, some of the light is provided by reflective solar tubes which beam reflected sunlight into rooms, replacing electric light globes, while motion-sensitive lights in the toilet turn off when they are unoccupied. The office air-conditioning system is kept at a balmy 28 degrees in summer to reduce CO2 output and white collar employees are allowed to wear short sleeved shirts and no ties to compensate for the warmer office temperature. Even the grass has been specially developed to grow more slowly than conventional lawn. As a result, it only requires mowing once a year, compared with three times for the grass it replaced. In 2008, Toyota planted 50,000 trees to offset the factory’s CO2 emissions.
Toyota has been criticised by its rivals, who claim the company’s petrol-electric Prius isn’t as green as other conventional vehicles once the car’s manufacturing process is taken into account.

Critics claim the Prius production process creates more CO2 than normal petrol vehicles, nullifying the lower CO2 output of the car itself. Toyota admits the production process is more CO2-intensive, but says that by the first year of its life, the Prius has wiped out the deficit.
The company also denies its CO2-reducing initiatives are related to the criticism the car has received.

[phamilyman]

Very interesting - can you provide more details? more specifics - this is almost marketing spiel!

[ashwinsid]

Yes. Kindly provide the source of this information. Hope its not a email forward!

Wait, I checked google. Huffington post has an article too. Hard to say if this is genuine or some funny story. But excellent if its true!

[srishiva]

Very interesting. If they can allow us to plant these flowers/plants, we can also try to clean up our environment.

[beejay]

Thanks for sharing. Makes for an interesting read. As the others have mentioned here I hope it true.
Every sentence sounds too good to be true. Its nice to know that things are going in the right side.

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

this is almost marketing spiel!

Almost? Ask a marketing man. This entire article stinks of marketing and brand image spiel.

[phamilyman]

I'm a strategy con-sultan(t) myself. Being team-bhp I was just being polite. Only because OP has 172 posts and been around 4 months.

[beejay]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

I'm a strategy con-sultan(t) myself. Being team-bhp I was just being polite. Only because OP has 172 posts and been around 4 months.

And a bumble bee to chance upon somthing like flowers.

[Bumblebee86]

Seems like they tried developing flora a long time back. In 2005 they did actually develop a shrub that improves air quality.

PRESS RELEASE:

October 6, 2005

Toyota Develops Shrub that Greatly Improves Air Quality —New Cherry Sage Better Cleanses Air, Reduces “Urban Heat Island Effect”


Tokyo — TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (TMC) announced today that it has developed a new Cherry Sage shrub, known as “Kirsch Pink”, which has a greater capacity to cleanse the atmosphere than other currently available varieties. The new shrub will be sold through TMC-subsidiary Toyota Roof Garden Corporation from March 2006.

Cherry Sage is a semi-evergreen shrub with a long flowering period. TMC has been developing new varieties of Cherry Sage, noting that the shrub is highly effective in cleansing the atmosphere and reducing the “urban heat island effect”. The new “Kirsch Pink” variety developed by TMC is approximately 30% more efficient in reducing the urban heat island effect and absorbing atmospheric pollutants, such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, compared with conventional Cherry Sage, and is approximately 20% more efficient than the currently available, fast-growing “Kirsch Red”. This makes TMC’s new variety ideal for promoting environmental improvement through greenery, by using it as park shrubbery or alongside city streets.

In addition, TMC has also developed a low-height, heat-resistant Roman chamomile, known as “Cruz”, and a heat-resistant, leafy lavender plant, known as “Argent”, which are both scheduled to go on sale at the same time as the Kirsch Pink.

Toyota is continuously striving to improve the quality of green areas and make progress in the improvement of the atmospheric environment through developing enhanced species of plant life. TMC started selling its Gardenia plant, known as the “Wald”, which has a very high atmospheric-cleansing ability, in October 2003.

[Autonorm]

This is a just a marketing gimmick. The plant absorbs nitrogen oxide and the leaves create water vapour which cools down the surrounding air, utter nonsense. Nitrogen is used by all plants for growth which is absorbed through the soil, I guess if they ever open their high school Chemistry text books and look up nitrogen fixation they will know better what they are talking about. The leaves giving out water vapour, well a fifth grade kid will be able to tell them what evaporation is.

I don't also see them mentioning and of the other harmful gasses that the flowers absorb, no carbon momoxide, no sulfuric gases. Utter nonsense.