The Nature of It All: Toyota Donates $1 Million to Help Fund New Yellowstone Youth Campus

Campus Will Be First Regenerative Campus of Living Buildings in a
National Park

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Online gaming or using social media apps – kids often live in virtual
environments. But kids in Yellowstone National Park will soon have a new living
environment to explore, with help from Toyota.


Today the automaker presented a $1 million donation to the Yellowstone
Park Foundation to support the development of a new Yellowstone Youth
Campus. The new campus will be a home for immersive youth programming in
the park, creating a place of learning for future generations of
conservationists and a pretty cool hang-out to share experiences.

Designed by Hennebery Eddy Architects of Portland, Ore., the new
Yellowstone Youth Campus aims to be the first buildings in a national
park to achieve Living Building Challenge Certification. One of the most
rigorous environmental building certifications in the world, the Living
Building Challenge integrates ecological relationship, cultural
heritage, stewardship, sustainability and leadership into all aspects of
design, construction and operation. The result is a “Living Lab” for all
who enter.

“The new Yellowstone Youth Campus is an opportunity to support the
conservation principles of the National Park Service while reinforcing
Toyota’s commitment to the environment,” said Toyota Motor North America
Environmental General Manager Kevin Butt. “We hope this environmental
learning center will inspire and empower future leaders in building a
more culturally aware, ecologically responsible and regenerative future.”

While the campus expands, the environmental footprint is expected to
shrink with pursuit of the Living Building Challenge. The buildings are
designed to significantly reduce energy use through high-performance
insulation and windows, natural ventilation, and other passive measures.
Planned photovoltaic arrays on-site will provide more than 100 percent
of campus energy needs, creating excess energy for the grid. One hundred
percent of water used on campus will be locally sourced and all
wastewater will be treated on-site for reuse. The design prioritizes a
healthy indoor environment by using only non-toxic and low VOC building
materials and furnishings. Once complete, the campus will serve as a new
benchmark for National Park Service projects.

It also will serve as the home of two youth programs, each with a
national reach – Expedition Yellowstone and the Youth Conservation
Corps. Expedition Yellowstone provides week-long residential experiences
for grade school-aged children with a focus on disadvantaged
populations, while the Youth Conservation Corps offers a one-month
immersive summer program for high-school students. Replacing the
existing Youth Conservation Corps campus, the new youth campus will be
able to serve twice the current student capacity with the addition of
four classrooms, residential buildings and staff housing on-site.

This isn’t Toyota’s first footprint in the park. In 2015, Toyota
introduced a unique, renewable distributed energy system at the Lamar
Buffalo Ranch. By combining solar power with re-used Camry Hybrid
battery packs, the system provides reliable, sustainable, zero emission
power to the ranger station and education center for the first time
since it was founded in 1907.

And when Yellowstone designed the new Old Faithful Visitor Education
Center (OFVEC), Toyota engineers shared knowledge gained during
construction of its Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) certified office complex in Torrance, Calif. The automaker also
provided a $1 million gift to the foundation for construction of the
Center, which opened in 2010.

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM), the world’s top automaker and creator of the Prius and
the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is committed to advancing mobility through
our Toyota and Lexus brands. Over the past 50 years, we’ve produced more
than 30 million cars and trucks in North America, where we operate 14
manufacturing plants (10 in the U.S.) and directly employ more than
44,000 people (more than 34,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American
dealerships (1,500 in the U.S.) sold more than 2.8 million cars and
trucks (nearly 2.5 million in the U.S.) in 2015 – and about 80 percent
of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 20 years are still on the road
today.

Toyota partners with community, civic, academic, and governmental
organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility
challenges. We share company resources and extensive know-how to support
non-profits to help expand their ability to assist more people move more
places.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.

Contacts

Toyota Communications
Jana Hartline, (310) 779-0415
or
Allison+Partners
for Toyota

Tassi Herrick, (308) 539-1883
or
Media
website:
http://www.toyotanewsroom.com
Public
websites:
http://www.toyota.com
http://www.lexus.com

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