Mercedes 2015 Annual Report Download - page 108

B | COMBINED MANAGEMENT REPORT | SUSTAINABILITY 115
The workforce
Slight increase in number of employees
At December 31, 2015, the Daimler Group employed a total of
284,015 men and women. Due to the high demand for our
products, the workforce grew by 1% compared with the end of
2014. We had anticipated that the workforce would grow
slightly at the beginning of 2015. The number of employees in
Germany increased to 170,454 (2014: 168,909) and employee
numbers also rose in the United States, to 24,607 (2014: 22,833).
At the end of 2015, Daimler employed 11,669 men and
women in Brazil (2014: 12,313) and 11,002 (2014: 11,400) in Japan.

B.42 Our consolidated subsidiaries in China had a total
headcount of 3,155 at the end of the year (2014: 2,664). At the
end of the reporting year, the parent company Daimler AG
employed a total of 151,183 men and women (2014: 151,524).
Workforce numbers in nearly all divisions increased compared
with the previous year. Growth primarily took place at Daimler
Financial Services, Daimler Buses and Mercedes-Benz Vans.

B.43 Within the context of the Customer Dedication initiative,
the employees previously reported under “Sales & Marketing
Organization” were included in the employee numbers for the
respective divisions for the years 2014 and 2015. Since the
end of 2015, this has also applied to the Group’s own sales and
service centers in Germany and the global logistics center in
Germersheim, whose employees are now grouped under Mercedes-
Benz Cars, Daimler Trucks, Mercedes-Benz Vans and Daimler
Buses. The figures for comparison from 2014 have been adjusted
to reflect these changes.
Extensive recyclability of old vehicles
To make our vehicles more environmentally friendly, we are
reducing our automobiles’ emissions and the resources they
consume over their entire lifecycle. We therefore pay close
attention to creating a recycling-friendly design already at the
development stage. Up to 85% of the materials in all Mercedes-
Benz models are recyclable and as much as 95% of the materials
are reusable. This means we were in compliance with the new
EU recycling directive before it even went into effect in 2015.
Other proven elements of our recycling concept are the resale
of inspected and certified used parts, the remanufacturing
of parts and the MeRSy Recycling Management workshop dis-
posal system.
Avoiding waste
In the area of waste management, Daimler believes that recy-
cling and the prevention of waste are better than disposal.
Accordingly, the reconditioning and reuse of raw, process and
operating materials has been standard practice at our plants
for many years. In order to avoid the creation of waste from the
outset, we use innovative technological processes and environ-
mentally focused production planning. Waste materials that are
unavoidable are generally recycled. As a result, the recycling
rate for waste at our plants is approximately 91% on average.
At some plants, almost 100% of the waste is now recycled,
meaning that waste destined for landfills has been almost com-
pletely eliminated.
As we systematically pursue our environmental protection
activities, we rely on comprehensive environmental manage-
ment systems. Today, more than 98% of our employees
worldwide work in plants whose environmental management
systems have been certified as conforming to the ISO 14001
or EMAS environmental standards.
Extensive measures for environmental protection
in production
In recent years, we have been able to limit the energy consump-
tion, CO2 emissions, production-related solvent emissions
and noise at our plants with the help of environmentally friendly
production processes. As a result, energy consumption during
the period 2011-2015 increased by only 4.5% to 10.9 million
megawatt-hours, which was well below the rate of production
growth. During the same period, CO2 emissions decreased by
6.1% to a total of 3.2 million metric tons. Our ongoing energy-
saving projects enabled us to counteract the additional energy
consumption and CO2 emissions increase that resulted from
the rise in production in 2015. Energy consumption per manu-
factured vehicle (car) in the reporting year decreased by 5.5%
from the prior year, and CO2 emissions declined by 5.7%. With
resource-conserving technology such as circulation systems,
water consumption rose by slightly less than 1.1% between 2011
and 2015, which was well below the rate of production growth.
In relation to the number of vehicles we manufactured, we
were able to reduce water consumption by 2.2% compared
with the prior year.
B.43
Employees by division
2015 2014 15/14
Employees (December 31) % change
Daimler Group 284,015 279,972 +1
Mercedes-Benz Cars 136,941 135,553 +1
Daimler Trucks 86,391 87,628 -1
Mercedes-Benz Vans 22,639 21,598 +5
Daimler Buses 18,147 17,473 +4
Daimler Financial Services 9,975 8,878 +12
Other 9,922 8,842 +12
Empl
oyees at 12/31/2015
By
region
B.42
Ge
rmany 60.0%
Eu
rope, excluding Germany 13.3%
US
A 8.7%
Brazil
4.1%
Japa
n 3.9%
Ot
her 10.0%