For over 10 years, Arquus has been taking action in the field of eco-design, measuring and limiting the environmental impact of a part or a vehicle throughout its life cycle: from the design stage, through the manufacturing - transport - use phases, right up to end-of-life treatment.
The risks associated with the use of hazardous substances in the composition of parts and their manufacturing processes are at the heart of our concerns, both to protect the health of users and to comply with legal and contractual requirements in this area. To this end, actions are taken by the Product Environment team, in collaboration with the Design Office, Purchasing, HSE, Customer Support and Suppliers, in order to :
- Limit the use of hazardous substances in parts and products;
- Identify and list substances present in finished products and/or manufacturing processes;
- Identify, qualify and industrialize substitution solutions in line with our expectations;
- Implement preventive measures for users and handlers.
To this end, over the past few months nearly 300 people at all Arquus sites have been trained to handle products containing diisocyanates, a hazardous substance subject to restrictions under the European REACh regulation (1907/2006).
Application to major programs
Since 2015, major programs for the French Army, such as SCORPION and VTCFS, have enabled us to extend our Product Environment activity to other issues: dismantling, recycling, life-cycle impact assessment and eco-design. In 7 years, this has meant :
- 6 studies carried out on the dismantling and end-of-life treatment of our equipment, with recycling rates similar to legal requirements for the automotive sector;
- For example, on Griffon VTT Félin :
- 94% recycling rate (vs. 85% required by the automotive ELV directive)
- 96% recovery rate (vs. 95% required by the automotive ELV directive).
- 8 environmental assessments of the impact of our products and manufacturing processes over their entire life cycle.
The aim of these studies is to identify concrete and appropriate actions to be implemented at Arquus, in terms of responsible purchasing, eco-design, end-of-life management and energy efficiency, to name but a few examples.