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It’s now a decade since two major agreements on sustainability and climate change were inked. In 2015, global leaders met in France to sign the Paris Agreement – the international treaty on climate change. The same year, UN member states agreed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – a series of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs).

A lot has happened in the tech world since then. Technologies such as 5G, AI, data centres and satellite comms are continuing to transform industry and revolutionise life. 

We can applaud the progress of our digital world, but this rapid growth is taking a toll on the planet. And that’s why the mobile industry is working to reduce its environmental impact.

Already seen as a trailblazer in the industry, Thales has been taking steps for more than a decade to ensure that our ESG credentials match our leadership in technological innovation. One of the ways in which we’re doing this is to have our goals for 2030 validated by SBTi, the corporate climate action organisation that enables companies and financial institutions to play their part in combating the climate crisis.

Assessing environmental footprint

ESG leaders assess and validate their environmental footprint, including calculating the impact of their products through a life cycle assessment (LCA), before enhancing them – and LCAs are the best tool for that. Using an LCA entails examining everything in a product or service life cycle, from the resources used – such as energy and water – to waste generation and emission. Although it’s not mandatory, ESG leaders frequently opt to have these LCAs validated by an outside partner.

Thales has been using LCAs for a long time, and in 2024, we asked testing, inspection and certification leader Bureau Veritas to review the LCAs of our EcoSIM cards and Thales eSIM Management platform digital service.

“We are proud to support Thales in its ESG journey through our critical review of its life cycle assessments,” says Marie-Elisabeth d'Ornano, Global Certification Director at Bureau Veritas “Verifying compliance with international standards reinforces Thales's commitment to transparency and leadership. Collaborating with a leading company like Thales highlights our shared dedication to sustainability and innovative solutions in the technology sector.”

Because we’ve been assessed by Bureau Veritas, clients can trust our methodology when we say we can reduce the environmental impact of SIM cards by 40%. In its examination of our products Bureau Veritas has validated the quality, reliability and integrity of the LCA methodology we use for our EcoSIM cards and the Thales eSIM management platform.  

“We pride ourselves on being ahead of the curve when it comes to LCAs,” explains Eva Rudin, VP, Mobile Connectivity Solutions at Thales. “We performed our first assessments on our SIM cards back in 2010. And since 2023, we’ve extended LCAs to encompass our digital services. We think this is a very necessary step, and by engaging Bureau Veritas, we’re showing the world that our approach to sustainability is both pioneering and transparent.”

LCA basics

LCAs are the basis for an efficient eco-design process because they help designers identify the most significant environmental impacts as well as the opportunities for improvement. Our approach starts with using LCAs to measure the environmental impact of our products and services through a process that complies with ISO 14040-44:2006 and 14067:2018 standards.

“LCAs enable us to identify the primary factors for reducing environmental impact from both our physical products and digital services throughout their life cycle, from design to production and from use to disposal,” says Rudin.

This ‘cradle to grave’ approach goes beyond simply measuring CO2 emissions, as Rudin explains: “It considers multiple environmental impact criteria, such as acidification, ozone layer depletion and depletion of abiotic resources, and helps us to guarantee the quality, reliability and integrity of the LCA method used for our EcoSIM cards and the Thales eSIM Management platform.”

Creating more sustainable digital solutions 

Although what we do in the mobile industry accounts for only a fraction of all services contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, we don’t use this as an excuse for not acting. When we’re talking about digital solutions such as the Thales eSIM Management platform, we look at the impact of the mobile phone, the network used for data exchange and the data centre itself. 

It’s this knowledge of the environmental impacts of digital services that’s helping us to shape our eco-design approach, which is part of our wider digital transformation process. “Our biggest breakthroughs have been implementing modern and efficient architecture and transitioning to public cloud services, which has allowed us to leverage the shared infrastructure efficiency of data centres,” says Rudin. “And our efforts are paying off. We’ve observed a reduction factor of three to five for Scope 2 and 3 emissions.”

Collaboration

We’re also working with partners across the industry. In addition to collaborating with other members of the GSMA, Thales is a partner of EU-funded project European ECOsystem for GreeN Electronics (EECONE). This aims to limit the environmental impact of electronic devices by reducing e-waste across the continent and extending device life. Sharing our experience in eco-design, we support one of the numerous initiatives giving devices a second life, which repurposes smartphones into home routers.

Plus, we’ve partnered with SHIFT, the German pioneer in sustainable and ethical handset manufacturing, to make SHIFT phones more sustainable by integrating our eSIM technology – which uses recycled material – in its next-generation smartphones. “This solution offers the flexibility brought by an eSIM, reducing the need for multiple physical cards, cutting down on plastic waste and supporting more eco-friendly devices,” says Carsten Waldeck, SHIFT’s CEO and founder.

The global climate emergency doesn’t respect borders, so companies like Thales must work globally with our suppliers, customers, industry partners, standardisation bodies and regulators, to reduce our environmental footprint and tackle the challenges of climate change. Thales is already recognised as a leader in digital security. We’re determined that we will achieve the same level of excellence in eco-design, by limiting the environmental impact of our products and services while advancing technological innovation from cradle to grave.