Autonomous drone networks are a faster route to sustainable supply chains

The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and worsening climate change have strained supply chains past their breaking point, and the challenge of resiliency and access to life-critical goods is more important than ever. Supply chains all over the world are failing under the weight of increasing demand, limiting access to goods and services. And as customers increasingly expect on-demand, next-day or same-day delivery, our existing ground vehicle-based logistics network is growing increasingly inefficient and unsustainable. Investment in new forms of resilient and sustainable infrastructure is critical to the long-term success of global logistics.

Today, we can invest in sustainable, long-term infrastructure that requires no additional roads, embraces green spaces and brings massive reductions in carbon emissions. These benefits aren’t hypothetical or futuristic: Drone logistics companies are already moving goods around the world, providing on-demand, just-in-time access, while imposing a fraction of the carbon footprint of a ground-based network.

We’ll examine two: Rwanda and Virginia, US, both of which benefit from drone logistics networks operated by two leading companies in the field, Zipline and Wing, who have made 200,000 and 100,000 commercial deliveries respectively.

In Rwanda, Zipline recently celebrated its fifth year anniversary during which it has made 200,000 deliveries of blood, vaccines and other medical products to rural hospitals and clinics. As part of their five-year review, the company performed a sustainability analysis of its delivery emissions, the first of its kind leveraging real-world customer and order data. These deliveries, many of which are emergency, on-demand requests for medical products, resulted in a:

Zipline’s methodology is described in greater detail here. In short, had these deliveries been performed by vehicles, not only would such a supply chain be significantly slower and less resilient, but they would also have been orders of a less sustainable magnitude. Not only are drone deliveries improving health outcomes by ensuring rapid delivery of essential medical products to rural areas, but they’re also helping save the environment.

In Christiansburg, Virginia, Wing has been delivering products to residences by drone for two years. An economic report published by the Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development in September 2020 indicated that enabling such drone delivery in a single US metropolitan area would:

It is no surprise, then, that in surveying Christiansburg residents, Virginia Tech found that 87% approved of drone operations. Not only was the community receiving their deliveries in a far more convenient way than before, but they were making a significant impact on the environment by taking cars off the road, reducing congestion and substantially cutting carbon emissions.

Both Zipline and Virginia Tech cite similar reasons for why drone logistics have such a massive sustainability impact:

Of course, not all logistics can be handled by drone. But it’s clear that drones have a critical role to play in our supply chain to drive sustainability and resiliency. The ideal, optimized 21^st-century supply chain will require a mixture of drones, trains, trucks and ships; by integrating Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, we can bring about a transformative impact on the ecological and societal resiliency of our global logistics at a time when our supply chains most need it.