Mercedes 2002 Annual Report Download - page 62

Ongoing process to achieve sustainable mobility
and environmental protection
Back in 1992, government representatives from 180
countries pledged their support for the concept of
sustainable development at the United Nations Confer-
ence on the Environment and Development in Rio de
Janeiro. Ten years later, an initial assessment of the
progress made reveals two significant facts: On the one
hand, more effort is still required to realize the vision
of enduring environmental protection and sustainable
mobility. On the other hand, the last few years have
seen significant advances and improvements in many
areas.
We at DaimlerChrysler have also implemented numer-
ous changes in recent years with a view to significantly
reducing the impact on the environment from the pro-
duction and operation of our vehicles. Measures already
taken include the introduction of certified environmental
management systems at our plants and a substantial
reduction in emissions resulting from production pro-
cesses. We have, for example, reduced specific solvent
emissions by up to 80%. At the same time, significantly
enhanced efficiency in dealing with resources and
greater use of renewable raw materials in vehicle manu-
facturing are both helping to ease the burden on the
environment. Along with such improvements, we have
also achieved a significant cut in fuel consumption and
CO2emissions for our vehicles through measures taken
within individual product lifecycles and from one model
generation to the next. As a result, the average fuel con-
sumption of our entire passenger-car fleet in Germany
has fallen by over 22% since 1995.
DaimlerChrysler and the Environment
56 |DaimlerChrysler and the Environment
Around 40% of the total research budget at Daimler-
Chrysler is dedicated to the issues of fuel consumption
and emissions. In particular, we are working hard to
develop fuel-cell and hybrid drives and to create highly
efficient internal-combustion engines (see page 52).
Indeed, the internal-combustion engine still has poten-
tial for improvement. However, even though renowned
environmental organizations regard the level of
emissions produced by today’s gasoline engines as
extremely low, work remains to be done in the area of
fuel consumption.
In order to bring about a further reduction in total
fleet consumption, it is crucial that the company intro-
duce low-consumption models for every vehicle
segment. The real challenge here consists of maintain-
ing a healthy balance between low consumption on the
one hand and continued product appeal on the other.
Proof that this can be achieved is offered by the market
success of the smart cdi, which is by far the most
popular ultra-fuel-efficient vehicle (three liters of fuel
per 100 kilometers) in Germany.
Reduced environmental impact from vehicle production and
operation |Further decrease in total fleet consumption |
Project launched to produce diesel and methanol from
biomass |Group-wide promotion of environment-protection
projects
To reduce the amount of waste paint temporarily stored in basins,
after water and solvents are extracted the solid residue is compressed
into pellets. The high-purity methanol that is gained in this way can be
used as fuel in internal-combustion engines or fuel cells.