Daily Maverick
Dailymaverick logo

Sport

Sport, World, Our Burning Planet

Olympians call on IOC to replace Toyota as Paris 2024 Games sponsor over ‘misleading’ EV advertising

Olympians call on IOC to replace Toyota as Paris 2024 Games sponsor over ‘misleading’ EV advertising
The engine of a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) prototype during its world premier in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, 6 November 2022. (Photo: Akio Kon / Bloomberg)
Julia Evans
By Julia Evans
7 Jun 2024
Facebook
9
Paris 2024 is set to be the first Olympic Games aligned with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. However, current and retired Olympians have urged the International Olympic Committee to replace Toyota as its main sponsor, because of climate and decarbonisation concerns.

Several Olympians have written an open letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), urging them to replace their main sponsor, Toyota — which has come under fire for misleading advertising when it comes to its hybrid electric vehicles (EVs) — with a “real leader” in the electric vehicle market.

“As athletes and sportspeople, we are directly affected by the detrimental impacts of climate change,” the Olympians wrote, citing several extreme weather events that affected them during the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. 

At the Tokyo Games, the marathon and race-walking events were moved 800km north of the intended venues and the women’s Olympics soccer finals changed stadiums because of extremely high temperatures (a first in the history of the Olympics). In addition, an archer fainted, and three tennis players retired during their matches because of heat-related illnesses.

Rhydian Cowley, Australian race-walking Olympian and one of the signatories of the letter, told Daily Maverick that despite his 50km race walk at the Tokyo Games being moved 800km north to Sapporo, “even at Sapporo, there was a heatwave that impacted the event, making the conditions extremely challenging for competitors to race safely.

The Olympic rings display outside Paris City Hall on Thursday, 7 September 2023. The Summer Olympics will take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024, mostly in the French capital although some events will take place in Marseille and Tahiti. (Photo: Andrea Mantovani / Bloomberg via Getty Images)



“A volunteer recounted that when he first moved to Sapporo 40 years prior, there were only one to two days per year with temperatures about 30 degrees — and that now this is two to three weeks.” 

Laura Baldwin, a British sailing Olympian and signatory, said, “Increasingly, events are being postponed, relocated or cancelled. Sports infrastructure is being destroyed by floods, fires and storms.”

The signatories noted that at this year’s Paris Olympics, increasing heat levels and poor air quality would adversely affect athletes’ performances and careers.

“As current and retired Olympians who care deeply about facing up to the climate emergency, and support the IOC’s impressive work on this urgent issue, we are writing to urge you to not renew your sponsorship deal with the world’s largest producer of conventional fossil-fuelled cars, Toyota,” the athletes wrote.

The Japanese automaker signed the top-tier sponsor contract with the IOC in 2015, with its total spending an estimated $835-million.

Japanese news media recently reported that Toyota was considering ending its partnership with the IOC because it believed its sponsorship money was not being used effectively to support athletes and promote sports.

The signatories said that this news “is a golden opportunity for the IOC to announce that this partnership will end this year … This year must be the last time the world’s biggest polluters are allowed anywhere near the Games.”

The IOC told Daily Maverick it had an agreement with Toyota until the end of 2024, adding, “We are currently working together in preparation for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and we look forward to bringing our exciting plans to life.”

Toyota did not respond to Daily Maverick’s requests to comment. 

Making Paris 2024 Green


The Paris 2024 Olympics are very focused on sustainability, with organisers claiming their sustainability plan will make Paris 2024 the first Olympic Games aligned with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Their plan includes:

  • Targeting a 50% reduction in carbon emissions compared to the average of London 2012 and Rio 2016;

  • Using 100% renewable energy during the Games;

  • Doubling the proportion of plant-based ingredients to help halve the carbon emissions used to prepare meals at the Games; and

  • Halving the use of single-use plastic for catering and reusing 100% of catering equipment and infrastructure after the Games.


The IOC said a flexible events calendar at Paris 2024 would allow adaptation to extreme heat events and other climate consequences. 

“Organisers are prioritising sustainable solutions to adapt to the impacts of climate change, such as the use of a water-cooling system instead of air-conditioning to keep temperatures at the Olympic Village in check,” the IOC said. 

Why Toyota?


The Olympic signatories, which include Dutch Olympic sailing silver medallist Marcelien Bos-de Koning and British Olympic canoe gold medallist Etienne Stott, are concerned that Toyota is not a good sponsor to have when it comes to decarbonising the transport sector, emphasising that less than 1% of Toyota’s car sales last year were electric, while other major carmakers like BMW had reached 15%, and that the automotive giant continued to lobby governments to roll back essential climate regulations. 

“When you represent your country, especially at a big event like the Olympics, you become a role model,” said Cowley. “As a role model, I have a duty to call out polluting companies such as Toyota, as their actions are detrimental to not only athletes but everyone else.”

According to a report by InfluenceMap released in May, Toyota is the worst company in the auto sector in terms of delaying climate regulations, advocating to weaken greenhouse gas emissions standards in the US and Australia. 

Toyota is a widely recognised pioneer when it comes to hybrid vehicles, with its plug-in and electric hybrids a big part of a “multi-pathway approach to crafting sustainable mobility solutions”.

Anthony Dane, a decarbonisation and climate change specialist and co-founder of the climate think tank Southern Transitions, told Daily Maverick that when it comes to decarbonising South Africa, various options should be on the table — including hybrid, fuel cell and other new energy vehicles. 

Companies like Toyota are not recognising the full impact of how polluting hybrid vehicles can be.

Data published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in March showed that car companies were underestimating the CO2 emissions of hybrid cars. 

Using a sample of 600,000 vehicles from several major automakers, the EEA found that for hybrids, CO2 emissions were around 3.5 times higher than the WLTP (World Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure) figures, which are used by car companies for official specifications.

Toyota’s plug-in and electric hybrids perform even worse — emitting over four times more CO2 than the company’s official figures claim. The EEA’s data show that the true figure for Toyota hybrids was close to 93g/km of CO2 emissions, much higher than the 22g/km that Toyota claimed.

Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee. (Photo: Laurence Griffiths / Getty Images)



To put this in context, Toyota’s internal combustion engine vehicles emit 127.52 g/km of CO2 on average, according to the EEA.  

Misleading advertising


The open letter highlighted Toyota’s “misleading marketing tactics to confuse the public” — referring to the advocacy and regulatory agencies across the world that have made advertising complaints, alleging that Toyota advertising its hybrids as featuring a “self-charging battery” could be misleading for consumers who do not understand that a hybrid’s combustion engine recharges the battery. 

Electric hybrids are powered by internal combustion engines (ICE) and an electric motor, which is powered by batteries. Regenerative braking and the ICE recharge the battery.

The letter also criticises Toyota for being misleading about Paris 2024.

The engine of a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) prototype during its world premier in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, 6 November 2022. (Photo: Akio Kon / Bloomberg)



Toyota has advertised that for the Paris Games, it is providing a “100% electrified passenger vehicle fleet, to contribute to Paris 2024 goal of halving emissions compared to previous Games”, which the Olympians note is misleading as about half the fleet is hybrids, which use petrol or diesel to power their internal combustion engines. 

Toyota will provide a fleet of more than 2,650 vehicles and 700 electric last-mile mobility solutions for the Games. Around 60% of the fleet will have zero-tailpipe emissions, which are battery electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, with the rest being plug-in and electric hybrids.

“The damage here is twofold,” said the Olympians. “Firstly, these petrol cars will increase the emissions of the Games, violating its commitment to cut emissions as much as possible. 

“Secondly, by promoting petrol vehicles as ‘sustainable’ to a huge global audience, this sponsorship deal risks undermining the clear message of climate scientists that we need to phase out fossil fuel-burning vehicles completely.”

Dane agreed, saying, “Overall, I tend to agree that the Toyota brand is not consistent with ambitions to make this the “most sustainable Games ever”. DM 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

Categories:

Tags: