DVLA and Thales Collaborate to Lower Environmental Impact of 12 Million Annual Cards

The United Kingdom government’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) partners with Thales to reduce the carbon footprint of its driving licenses as well as tachographs and residence cards.

Since 2018, Thales has cut by over one-third the CO2 emissions associated with the 12 million cards it supplies to the DVLA every year, without compromising the outstanding security, durability, and value for money provided by these products.

The DVLA is responsible for maintaining accurate records of more than 52 million drivers in Great Britain and more than 46 million vehicles across the UK. It is also recognized as a center of excellence for sourcing and issuing secure national documents. Since 2012, Thales has supplied the DVLA with polycarbonate driving licenses, a range of tachograph cards (for operations such as recording and storing the activity of commercial drivers), and residence cards for EU citizens to prove their right to live and work in the UK.

Key initiatives undertaken by Thales include the adoption of eco-design principles throughout its identity card portfolio. For example, the size of the contactless microcontrollers embedded in the UK’s tachograph and residence cards has been halved, resulting in an equivalent reduction in CO₂ microcontroller emissions while maintaining applications and security features unchanged.

In addition, Thales’ factories manufacturing the cards are accredited to the ISO 50001 standard, which focuses on energy efficiency. All these factories use 100% renewable electricity, accounting for over 70% of their total energy consumption. These improvements resulted in a reduction of over 80% of manufacturing-related emissions (scope 1 and 2) since 2018.

"Just like the DVLA, Thales is on the road to net zero and uses industry-standard tools to calculate the Life Cycle Assessments of its products. This comprehensive calculator¹ assesses the environmental impact of materials, packaging, transportation, document production, and distribution, as well as end-of-life. Together with DVLA, we are continually exploring new opportunities to improve the sustainability of the millions of cards supplied by Thales, looking for more responsible materials and solutions. At the same time, we remain focused on the need to maintain the security and integrity of identity credentials and deliver exceptional value for money for governments and public bodies,” said Nathalie Gosset, Vice President of Identity Document Solutions at Thales.

 

Source: Thales Press Releases