All other things being equal, the production of electric vehicles generates more CO₂ than the production of vehicles with internal combustion engines because a lot of energy is needed, especially for the battery cell production. It is therefore all the more important to procure carbon-neutral energy for production, which Mercedes-Benz is aiming for in all European plants as early as 2022. One step along this path is to use "green" electricity from domestic wind farms for the production of the EQC at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Bremen and for the battery production at the Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE site in Kamenz, Saxony, among other things.
In the use phase, drivers today can already directly influence the environmental balance of their electric vehicles - depending on the electricity they charge with. The LCA is in keeping with this, in particular the CO₂ balance in a concrete consideration of the entire life cycle of the Mercedes-Benz EQC with a mileage of 200,000 kilometres. By using clean electricity to charge the batteries, the EQC can cut its CO₂ footprint almost by half.

Mercedes-Benz is actively involved in researching and developing new recycling technologies to secure the future raw material requirements for electric mobility. Knowledge on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries was already collected in various research projects and in collaboration with suppliers and disposal partners. The recycling of the raw materials used such as lithium, nickel, platinum, cobalt and rare earths is the focus of consideration and starts with the design of the component parts. Mercedes-Benz has defined four stages and corresponding processes for the battery recycling process: ReUse (long-term reuse of the battery, for example for stationary energy storage systems), RePair (repair work on the battery), ReManufacturing (dismantling and rebuilding of the battery) and ReMat (recycling and recovery of the contents).

The Mercedes-Benz Group AG has focused particularly on ReUse in the form of stationary energy storage systems by founding the wholly owned subsidiary Mercedes-Benz Energy GmbH: because the life cycle of a plug-in or electric vehicle battery does not have to end with the operation of the car, they can be reused for stationary battery storage systems. Slight capacity losses do not matter for this application, and so cost-effective use in stationary operation is thus possible for an estimated ten more years at least. Reusing the lithium-ion modules effectively doubles their economic value.