Mandatory vehicle registration and insurance generates approximately 12,150 tonnes of carbon emissions every year in Finland. The emissions are roughly equivalent to driving 70 million kilometres in a private car. The situation is now improved by a new registration system implemented this month. From now on, it will be possible to carry out registration and insurance electronically in one go. As a result, the associated carbon emissions may even be halved.
The emission estimates are available in more detail in a report published by the Federation of Finnish Financial Services (FFI), Finnish Motor Insurer’s Centre (LVK), and Finnish Transport Safety Agency (Trafi), who have together made a commitment to sustainable development. The new registration method is one part of this commitment. The full report on the commitment is available in Finnish on the FFI website.
”We are confident that the new registration method not only reduces costs and emissions but also improves the service”, states Timo Tuominen, Development Manager at the FFI.
Fewer visits to the office means less pollution
Switching to online service is the single largest reason behind the reduced emissions. Previously, the average customer had to travel 23 kilometres to get the paperwork done.
”About 3.5 million registrations are made in Finland each year. A majority of these, about 2.8 million, have until now been made at the office. Removing the need to travel will not only cut back on emissions, but also make the registration process much faster for the customer”, says Esa Aaltonen, Development Manager at Trafi.
The previous system generates approximately 3.5 kg of carbon emissions per registration. If the reform is successfully carried out to the scale we intend, estimated future emissions will be merely 1.7 kg, which means a decrease of 52%. According to Lauri Linna, Liaison Officer at LVK, the aim is to have 60% of customers switched to electronic registration by the year 2018.
The commitment to sustainable development includes environmental goals for various emission sources and registration activities for 2015–2018. Of these, emissions per registration was seen as the most important indicator. Calculations were also made for registrations per region, generated traffic, paper use, and operations carried out in relation to insurance services. The calculations were made by Natural Interest Ltd, and will be monitored annually.
Finnish Motor Insurers’ Centre (LVK)
Lauri Linna, Liaison Officer, tel. +358 40 450 4591
Leena-Mari Tanskanen, Communications Manager, tel. +358 40 450 4676
Finnish Transport Safety Agency (Trafi)
Esa Aaltonen, Development Manager, tel. +358 29 5347 132
Milla Palmroos. Communications Manager, tel. +358 29 5345 413
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