By offering access to one of the largest energy-agnostic acceptance networks in Europe, DKV Mobility is helping road transport operators maximise the benefits of all available decarbonisation fuel solutions.
With a presence across Europe, DKV Mobility is facilitating the European road transport sector’s energy transition, supporting its customers in shifting to alternative energy sources. This is one of the IRU Green Compact’s “dual approaches” to decarbonisation, the other being improvements in efficiency.
To better understand how IRU member DKV Mobility is helping the sector decarbonise, we spoke with Laura Cremer-Heesen, Head of Sustainability, who explained the company’s holistic approach to sustainability.
What are the biggest decarbonisation challenges your customers are facing?
One major challenge is the transition to alternative fuels and energy sources, which involves significant investments in new technologies and infrastructure, often daunting for many companies.
Additionally, ensuring that these new mobility solutions are both economically viable and environmentally sustainable is another challenge.
Another major hurdle is the need for comprehensive data and reporting systems to calculate, track and manage emissions effectively. This requires technological advancements, new sector standards and a shift in mindset and operations across the entire value chain.
Why are your customers decarbonising?
Decarbonisation actions are driven by multiple factors. Regulatory pressures are significant, as stricter emission standards are being implemented, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive’s (CSRD’s) disclosure obligations at the European level.
Furthermore, our customers are increasingly striving to reduce their emissions with science-based targets. Client demand also plays a crucial role, with more customers prioritising sustainability in their purchasing decisions.
Finally, companies are realising that sustainable practices can lead to long-term cost savings and competitive advantages.
How are you helping them?
Our greatest opportunity for impactful change is to facilitate the European road transport sector’s energy transition and support our customers in switching to alternative energy sources. This includes providing access to one of the largest networks of more than 827,000 public and semi-public electric vehicle charging points across Europe, as well as meeting the growing demand for alternative energy sources, such as hydrotreated vegetable oil, hydrogen and natural gas.
We also offer digital services to help our customers manage and operate their business fleets efficiently, with an emphasis on the sustainability of their mobility.
To drive transparency and awareness of the carbon emissions our customers emit while fuelling their vehicles with DKV service cards, we offer carbon tracking in our customer portal. This allows us to translate our customers’ fuel consumption into tank-to-wheel CO₂ emissions by using our fuel transaction data (including information on the fuel type) and carbon emission factors.
We have continuously enhanced the functionality and data quality of our new DKV Analytics platform, including modelled well-to-wheel emission factors for carbon tracking from 2025 onwards to meet the new CSRD reporting and audit requirements.
How are you becoming more sustainable?
DKV Mobility follows a holistic environmental, social and governance approach, focusing on reducing our direct and indirect environmental impact. We have made significant progress, reducing our own emissions by more than 50% in 2023 compared to 2019.
We are now taking a step further by having set new ambitious climate targets validated by the high standards of the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi). With SBTi validation, DKV Mobility has committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain by 2050.
As part of our ongoing commitment, our near-term targets are to reduce our emissions by up to 42% by 2030 (scope 1, 2, 3.1 & 3.11 compared to 2022).
How do you plan to achieve this?
We have identified several levers to reduce our emissions, including cutting our energy consumption and deploying renewable energy.
We are also working on optimising our fuel value chain and boosting the sustainability of our products. For example, in 2022, we delivered one of the industry's first environmentally friendly service cards to our customers. It is made from recycled PETG plastic and consists of 90% recycled material, reducing CO₂ emissions per service card by 42% compared to the PVC cards typically used.
About DKV Mobility
Servicing some 384,000 active customers in more than 50 service countries across Europe with around 2,500 employees, DKV Mobility is the leading business-to-business platform for on-the-road payments and solutions with a history of purpose-driven growth for 90 years.
They offer access to one of the largest energy-agnostic acceptance networks in Europe, including about 68,000 conventional fuel service stations, around 827,000 public and semi-public EV charge points and some 23,000 alternative fuel service stations.
Moreover, DKV Mobility is a leading provider of toll payment solutions in Europe, while also offering mobility solutions, including vehicle services at around 34,000 vehicle service stations and innovative digital solutions.
In 2023, DKV Mobility generated a transaction volume of EUR 17 billion and revenue of EUR 714 million.