Mercedes 2009 Annual Report Download - page 87

Management Report |Profitability |83
The most important projects at Mercedes-Benz Cars were the
successor models for the A/B-Class and the M-Class, as well as
new-generation engines and alternative drive systems. Total
research and development expenditure at Mercedes-Benz Cars
amounted to €2.7 billion last year (2008: €3.0 billion). Daimler
Trucks spent €1.1 billion on research and development (2008: €1.1
billion). The main areas there were alternative drive systems,
new engines for medium and heavy-duty trucks and successor
generations of existing products. The focus of expenditure at
Mercedes-Benz Vans was on the further development of engines
to fulfill future emission regulations. Daimler Buses concen-
trated its development activities on new products, the fulfillment
of new emission standards and alternative drive systems such
as diesel hybrid and fuel cells.
€2.1 billion for environmental protection. We pursue the
goal of preserving resources and reducing all relevant emissions.
We therefore consider the effects of all our processes – from
vehicle development to production and to recycling and environ-
mentally friendly disposal. In the year 2009, we spent €2.1 billion
on environmental protection (2008: €2.3 billion).
Extensive activities for environmental protection in produc-
tion. With the help of environmentally friendly production meth-
ods, we have succeeded in recent years in continually reducing our
plants’ CO
2
emissions, production-related solvent emissions and
noise pollution. With comparable production volumes, energy con-
sumption fell between 2005 and 2008 by 2.9% to 10.4 million
megawatt hours. During the same period, CO
2
emissions decreased
by 3.3% to 3.6 million tons as a result of the slightly lower share
of electricity in our total energy consumption. The reductions in
2009 were significantly greater than in the preceding years:
17.2% for energy consumption and 15.9% for CO2emissions. This
was due on the one hand to the lower production volumes, but
on the other hand also to our continual efforts to reduce energy
consumption. Utilization of techniques that preserve resources
such as closed-cycle systems enabled us to reduce water con-
sumption by 2.3% between 2005 and 2008. A further reduction
of 22.4% was achieved in 2009.
In the area of waste management, our guiding principle is that
avoidance and recycling are better than disposal. Innovative tech-
niques and environmentally compatible production allow us to
steadily reduce our volumes of waste materials. Between 2005
and 2008, the total of production-related waste material fell
by 4.0% to 1.1 million tons. In 2009, in line with lower production
volumes, there was a reduction of 30% to 0.8 million tons. The
figures stated for the year 2009 are based on an extrapolation of
the environmental data currently available for 2009. The exact
figures will be released with the publication of the new Sustain-
ability Report in April 2010. We make use of comprehensive
environmental management systems in our efforts to make further
progress in the field of environmental protection. More than 98%
of our employees worldwide work in plants whose environmental
management systems have been certified according to the ISO
14001 or EMAS environmental standards.
Significant reductions in our cars’ CO
2
emissions to
160 g/km. In 2009, the CO2emissions of our vehicles sold in the
European Union decreased by 7% to 160 grams per kilometer.
We thus made significantly greater progress than our competitors.
This was partially due to our new economical engines and
“Blue-
EFFICIENCY” models. The first of these vehicles with opti-
mized
fuel efficiency, which consume up to 12% less fuel than the
standard models, were launched in 2008. By the end of the year
2009, 58 “BlueEFFICIENCY” models had become available; by the
end of 2010, this is to rise to 76. Meanwhile, nearly a third of our
cars sold in Europe have CO
2
emissions of less than 140 grams
per kilometer. We will reduce fuel consumption and CO2emis-
sions even more in the future with innovative technologies for
emission-free mobility. Our goal is to reduce the CO
2
emissions
of our new car fleet in the European Union to less than 140 grams
per kilometer by 2012. In recent years, we have continuously
reduced the emission of pollutants by our cars: by more than 70%
since 1995 and actually by more than 95% for particulate matter.
We are global leaders for clean engines with our BLUETEC technol-
ogy. Our BLUETEC automobiles fulfill the strictest emission stan-
dards and are the cleanest diesel cars in the world.
5
4
3
2
1
0
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
in billions of €
Research and development expenditure
total
thereof capitalized