Thales strengthens its sustainability journey with the launch of the Eco-Design Progress initiative

For more than 20 years, Thales has pursued robust Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy, grounded in international standards, engagement with key stakeholders, and strategic guidance from the Group’s highest governance bodies.

Investors, analysts, and Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) agencies increasingly request detailed insights on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) topics to evaluate how companies manage long-term impact and responsibility. Participating in these assessments allows Thales to benchmark its performance, identify areas for continuous improvement, and align with evolving market and regulatory expectations.

As part of its commitment, Thales is enhancing environmental transparency through the launch of the Eco-Design Progress Indicator — an index designed to capture and quantify improvements in the environmental impacts of our physical products throughout their lifecycles. This continuous improvement approach aims to provide clear and reliable data to support more responsible decision-making. It also reflects Thales’ ambition to ensure that 100% of new products adop eco-design principles.

This new tool supports more effective tracking of key environmental indicators, reinforces our eco-design efforts, and enables more informed, data-driven engagement with customers and partners. Acknowledging the evolving business requirements for eco-design, we are actively developing ESG-differentiated features within our product portfolio to align with these expectations.

Introducing the Thales Eco-Design Progress initiative: a lifecycle-based environmental improvement indicator

The Eco-Design Progress indicator provides a structured framework that helps our product teams and engineers adopt more sustainable choices and foster eco-innovation. It is based on a three-stage approach: first, measuring the environmental performance of individual products; second, setting ambitions for the overall product portfolio; and third, tracking progress toward these goals. 

The assessment focuses on three key pillars: Climate, Resources, and Circularity.

Climate – Measures progress* in reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the product lifecycle, expressed as a percentage reduction in equivalent CO₂. 

Resources – Encourages increased use of sustainable materials, with target thresholds for recycled or bio-based components.

Circularity – Focuses on circular economy practices, including extending product lifespan, enabling refurbishment and repair, and managing end-of-life more responsibly.

The combined performance across these dimensions is translated into a 1-star to 3-star rating, indicating the product's overall environmental improvement. 

The methodology has been independently validated by EcoAct to ensure transparency and technical rigor. This metric helps us shape our ESG ambitions and steer continuous improvement.

Ensuring credibility with EcoAct

EcoAct, a wholly owned subsidiary of Schneider Electric, is an international sustainability consultancy and project developer with 18+ years of industry experience and 360+ climate experts globally. Founded in France in 2006, the company now spans three continents with offices in Paris, London, Barcelona, New York, Montreal, Munich, Milan and Kenya.

EcoAct leads the way in developing sustainable business solutions that deliver true value for both climate and client. Its Climate Data Analytics and Research & Innovation teams help businesses implement positive change in response to climate and environmental sustainability challenges, whilst also driving commercial performance. 

EcoAct helped us validate the methodology of our “Eco-Design Progress initiative” to certify compliance with the following principles: relevancy of the assessment criteria, data tracking, calculation consistency, methodological transparency.

*Progress is measured against 2018, the baseline year for Thales’ commitments to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).