On the road to a sustainable future.

The eSprinter and eVito signalled the start of electrification for our Mercedes-Benz vans. These innovative and locally emission-free vans are pioneers on the road to achieving sustainable mobility. But before we all rush towards the future, perhaps it's worth pausing for a moment and asking ourselves what exactly sustainability means for Mercedes-Benz? And whether we really are on the right track if electric vans continue to be produced alongside those with combustion engines? A look at where we stand in the midst of a rapidly changing world.

Before any vans can be produced at Mercedes-Benz plants, raw materials have to be mined, processed and transported. Natural resources such as cobalt, aluminium or copper are transferred into a recycling circuit. And the first step towards a sustainable future is to close this loop. Re-using raw materials not only conserves natural resources, but thanks to recycling, CO2 emissions can also be reduced – notably those which would otherwise have been generated during mining, processing and transport of the raw materials. The higher the percentage of recycled raw materials used, the more sustainable the van is that can be created from them.

For Mercedes-Benz, however, sustainability also means safeguarding human rights. The so-called "Human Rights Respect System" stands for the identification and minimisation of risks and human rights violations along supply chains. Proactive educational measures are being carried out in regions such as Congo, which are currently bringing about a drastic improvement in the living conditions of over 19,000 people. Such projects aim to improve the role of people as part of the sustainable conversion of raw materials into finished vans.

Sustainably sourced or recycled raw materials eventually find their way into one of the Mercedes-Benz Vans plants. And here, too, measures for greater sustainability must be implemented. Among them: less waste, closed water cycles and, above all, the increased use of renewable energies. These and other improvements to sustainability should lead to CO2-neutral production at all Mercedes-Benz Vans plants in the near future. The fact that certain emissions are unavoidable for production is not something we try to hide – all these emissions are therefore compensated for using other appropriate projects. More information on CO2-neutral production can be found here.

On the road to sustainable mobility, we have not only set ourselves the goal of CO2-neutral production at our plants in the future, but we have also calculated in our partners and suppliers. When we say that Mercedes-Benz vans are becoming increasingly sustainable, we mean it! And it doesn't just apply to our electric vehicle models. After all, the ecological footprint of combustion engines is also benefiting from the changeover at the plants to CO2-neutral production. And the optimisation of these engines also plays a decisive role in the Mercedes-Benz roadmap for achieving sustainable mobility. For example, the four-cylinder OM 654 diesel engine with its exemplary efficiency and emission values is widely used in the Mercedes-Benz Vans portfolio.