Autonomous Drone Networks Bring Sustainability to Supply Chain Networks.

Organizational supply chains need a new approach to be more sustainable and capable in the face of today’s environmental and pandemic-related challenges.Drone logistics networks will ensure this by simultaneously reducing carbon emissions.Report from two leading companies in the field, Zipline and Wing, witness the above statement.

FREMONT, CA: Climate change and the pandemic collectively are stretching organizational supply chains beyond the breaking point. Moreover, a customer’s expectations for on-demand delivery require the existing ground logistics network to be more capable and sustainable.Therefore,improving these infrastructures to be more resilient and sustainable is crucial for logistics network globally.

We can invest in drone logistic networks as they are long-term infrastructure solutions that require no additional roads and produce a limited amount of carbon emissions. These logistics networks can provide on-demand delivery while releasing a fraction of the carbon footprint compared to ground-based networks. Let us examine Zipline and Wing, two leading companies in the field, which have executed 200,000 and 100,000 commercial deliveries, respectively.

Zipline recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, during which it made 200,000 deliveries of plasma, vaccines, and other medical products to rural hospitals and clinics. As part of this event, they conducted a sustainability analysis of its delivery emissions, which resulted in a 99, 98, and 94 percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to using fuel-based vehicles. Accordingly, drone deliveries are not only improving health outcomes by ensuring rapid delivery of essential medical products to rural areas, but they also help save the environment.

Similarly, in Christiansburg, Virginia, Wing has been delivering products to inhabitants by drone for two years. Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development—in September 2020—published an economic report that expressed that enabling such drone delivery in a single US metropolitan area would avoid up to 294 million miles on road and 580 car crashes per year. Furthermore, this network takes 25,000 cars off the road, reducing the total carbon emission by 113,900 tonnes which is equivalent to planting over 46,000 acres worth of trees. Virginia tech also found in the survey that 87 percent of Christiansburg’s residents approved of drone operations.

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