Hydrogenation of CO and CO2 to methanol on a stepped copper surface has been calculated using the BEEF-vdW functional and is compared to values derived with RPBE. It is found that the inclusion of vdW forces in the BEEF-vdW functional yields a better description of CO2 hydrogenation as compared to RPBE. These differ- ences are significant for a qualitative description of the overall methanol synthesis kinetics and it is suggested that the selectivity with respect to CO and CO2 is only described correctly with BEEF-vdW.