"Technology and engineering are an integral part of the answer to the climate crisis"

Can technology play a role in protecting the environment?

Anne-Brigitte Spitzbarth/ Technology and engineering are an integral part of the answer to the climate crisis. Rethinking how we live, how we interact with nature and even how our society is structured – all those things are all important. But we also urgently need to develop pragmatic solutions such as renewables, passive-energy servers and more frugal design approaches.

For instance, we’ve embraced eco-design as a fundamental principle. All new products are developed with energy sufficiency in mind, and we’re making every effort to reduce the size, weight and power of our technologies, with a focus on miniaturisation for lighter platforms.

How do you achieve the right balance between technology and the environment in your value chain?

Anne-Brigitte Spitzbarth/ We actively address climate change in our conversations with our suppliers and encourage them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. 

But above all, we work with our partners to design innovative products and solutions that not only meet customers’ needs but also help them shrink their environmental footprint.

A prime example is Green Flag, a new solution we’ve developed for the aviation industry, which accounts for the lion’s share of emissions linked to the use of our products. This collaborative platform helps air traffic controllers identify ways to reduce the environmental impact of aircraft by adjusting their flight parameters in a given sector of airspace. These suggestions can then be communicated to pilots mid-flight.

To give you another example, we’ve worked with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in the UK to reduce the carbon footprint of the 12 million driving licences, tachograph cards and other permits we supply to the agency every year. Since 2018, we’ve cut CO2 emissions associated with these cards by more than one third while maintaining the same high standards of quality, security and durability.

What environmentally relevant areas of research is Thales currently exploring?

Anne-Brigitte Spitzbarth/ Environmental concerns are firmly embedded in our research and innovation efforts to support our goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing greener solutions.

For instance, Thales is actively involved in the development of laser nuclear fusion, a groundbreaking technology that, in the long term, offers the promise of a dependable supply of low-carbon energy with little radioactive waste. We already operate the most powerful laser system in the world at the Extreme Light Infrastructure for Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) research centre in Romania. And in 2024, we formed a new company, GenF, with backing from CNRS, CEA and École Polytechnique, to complete the preliminary design phase by 2027 and to have an industrial demonstrator in place by 2050.

Anne-Brigitte Spitzbarth/ The environmental impact of artificial intelligence tends to be framed in purely negative terms. But AI is also a potential enabler of the green transition.

To take another example from the aviation industry, in 2024, Thales joined forces with the airline Amelia, and with Breakthrough Energy Contrails, to launch an AI-powered solution that optimises flight plans and thus limits the potential overconsumption of fuel to under 3%. On flight routes between Paris and Valladolid, the initiative helped to avoid more than 20 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2024. In 2025, Amelia has applied this technology to most of its eligible flight operations, making this experiment one of the largest of its kind in the world.