Whether it's steel, aluminum, batteries, or electronics – our trucks and buses are made of valuable materials that we want to keep in circulation for as long as possible. By striving for material cycles that are as closed as possible, we aim to reduce the environmental impacts of our products. Our goal is to use resources efficiently, avoid waste wherever possible, and reduce environmental impacts across the value chain.
Circular Economy
¹ For further information on the calculation methodology, please refer to the Annual Report 2025.
Holistic Concept of Circular Economy
The global demand for natural resources is continuously increasing. This has implications for the environment and society.
We take a holistic approach to the circular economy, with a particular focus on: circular product design, waste reduction, repair and reuse of components, remanufacturing, and recycling of vehicles, components, and materials. This enables us to conserve valuable resources, reduce waste, and extend the service life of products.
Our approach is further complemented by a systematic consideration of resource inflows and outflows in order to close material loops as far as possible, reduce the use of virgin raw materials, and keep materials in circulation for longer. In this way, we contribute through our production activities and together with our suppliers and customers to reducing our environmental footprint and strengthening Daimler Truck’s resilience – today and in the future.
Our Path to Circular Economy
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REDESIGN - Rethinking Products, Directing Resource Flows
A key instrument is our Ecodesign Guideline, which directly contributes to existing strategies and company-wide goals. It translates these into concrete principles and recommendations for product development. This creates a robust foundation to anchor circular economy in the development process long-term and effectively, an important driver of corresponding innovations within our company.
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REDUCE - Reducing Production Waste
For us, responsible use of resources also includes the use of reusable packaging and reducing, or wherever possible avoiding, waste.
We are continuously working to reduce raw material and resource consumption at our sites. To achieve this goal, we improve our production processes and thereby reduce cuttings, sands, filter materials, or sludges.
In disposal, we also pursue a clear principle: recovery before disposal. Our experts regularly review how disposal routes can be improved so that waste can be reused wherever possible.
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REPAIR, REUSE, REMANUFACTURING & REWORKING - Extending Lifespan
We design our vehicles so that components can be easily replaced and repaired.
Furthermore, we rely on remanufacturing: used components such as engines, transmissions, or batteries are remanufactured to typically meet the technical requirements of comparable new parts. This allows us to refurbish used trucks to a high standard, for example, as "Mercedes-Benz Trucks Certified" or "Detroit®Reman".
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REPURPOSE & SECOND LIFE - New Purposes for Used Components
Even after their use in a vehicle, high-voltage batteries can still offer considerable potential. That is why we are developing solutions to give used batteries a second life.
At Daimler Buses, initial approaches to battery repurposing are being developed to create a second-life application for high-voltage batteries. At Trucks North America, analyses are also being conducted to assess how batteries with a low state of health can be used to support the power grid and charging infrastructure.
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RECYCLING - Returning Materials to the Cycle
Recycling is a central element of our circular economy. Our ambition is to continuously increase the circularity of our products and materials and to close material loops as far as technically and economically feasible.
To achieve this, we rely on circular product design, specialized disposal routes, and the increased use of recyclates.
Practical examples show how this works: We remove the sheathing from copper cables before disposal and thereby increase recycling efficiency. At the Gaggenau site, we capture excess paint from the painting process and reuse it almost entirely.
Not all materials can be fully returned to the cycle. Therefore, we systematically analyze material flows to identify and reduce losses, especially of critical raw materials. Our goal is to keep materials in circulation for as long as possible and continuously reduce the share of thermal recovery and landfill disposal.
Our Ambitions at a Glance:
- We want to increasingly operate our value creation in a circular and regenerative manner.
- By 2030, we aim to achieve a waste recovery rate of more than 95% across our global production network.
- By 2030, the measures are intended to result in a permanent reduction in waste generation in our production operations of 40 kt per year compared with the reference scenario.²
² The reduction target is based on the average waste generation of the years 2013/2014 and takes expected production developments into account.
