The Impact of Drones on Supply Chain Sustainability

Sustainability in Supply Chain: The Drone Advantage

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is taking center stage in today’s corporate landscape, as investors, consumers, and business leaders become increasingly aware of environmental issues. According to KPMG, 96% of the top 250 companies in the US report on sustainability, and transforming the supply chain can make all the difference when it comes to hitting ambitious sustainability goals. Supply chains account for over 90% of an organization’s greenhouse gas emissions, making them a priority for any business that’s serious about ESG.

Integrating drones into supply chains promotes environmental stewardship and supports corporate social responsibility initiatives. Drones deliver a number of environmental benefits, from reduced carbon emissions, lower fuel consumption, and improved supply chain efficiency. Let’s look at these in more detail.

Reducing Carbon Footprint: The Environmental Benefits of Drones

Drones offer clear advantages over traditional transport methods when it comes to carbon emissions. A study at Carnegie Mellon University found that using drones to transport small packages for last-mile delivery had up to 94% less energy consumption per package than other vehicles.

Unlike road vehicles, drones can take a direct route to their destination, which means they consume less energy and produce fewer CO2 emissions. Traditional transport methods such as vans, trucks and motorcycles are still mainly powered by fossil fuels. While electric vehicles are being introduced, electrifying an entire fleet requires a large amount of investment. Drones are battery powered or hybrid to begin with, making them a more sustainable choice from day one.

Efficiency and Speed: Enhancing Supply Chain Operations

The potential of drones to revolutionize supply chains kicks in well before the last mile. In fact, drone technology can improve the efficiency and speed of operations across the supply chain, reducing lead times and costs.

Drones can turbo-charge operations by transporting cargo between different points along the supply chain—from a warehouse to a distribution center, for example, or from an airport to a train station—without wasting time in traffic. Aside from making deliveries, they are also proving their worth when it comes to inventory management. Equipped with sensors and cameras, drones can whizz through inventory checks, reducing the risk of manual errors and covering distances and hard-to-reach areas quickly and safely.

Assessing Sustainability: Key Considerations

While there is a compelling case for integrating drones into delivery operations, there are a number of critical factors to consider. As with any vehicle, the hardware matters. It’s important to conduct a life-cycle analysis of a drone, taking into account everything from the materials and energy used in its manufacture to the length of its active life, how easy it is to recycle and its final disposal.

Energy consumption, meanwhile, is not straightforward. It’s essential to take the weight of the drone, the journey distance and the payload into account in order to build up an accurate view of energy consumptions. Companies also need to take a holistic view, considering the environmental impact of everything needed to get drone operations up and running, from the impact of building infrastructure and DroneSpot(TM), to battery recharging.

Optimizing Flight Patterns: Minimizing Environmental Impact

There’s a lot to consider when calculating a drone route. Operators have to take the battery life of the drone into account, as well as adhere to regulations governing the use of airspace to ensure the safe navigation of tall buildings and power lines. However, it’s also important to think about sustainability when making these calculations.

The delivery route of a road vehicle can significantly affect its overall footprint, and flight patterns are no different. By optimizing drone flight paths, for example by plotting in the maximum number of drops a drone’s battery life and payload capacity can accommodate, operators can minimize their environmental impact and reduce energy consumption.

Renewable Energy Integration: Powering the Drones of Tomorrow

Battery powered drones already have a head start over traditional road vehicles, many of which still rely on fossil fuels. The future, however, could see drones powered by renewable energy sources such as solar. Drones with solar panels on their wings can harness the sun’s rays and transform sunlight into electricity that powers their motors and keeps them aloft.

It’s also important to integrate renewable energy throughout operations. For example, the electricity grid is one of the factors that determines the overall impact of drone delivery. The cleaner the energy used in the infrastructure, the lower the impact of running a droneport or recharging station.

Data-Driven Sustainability: Monitoring and Reporting

One of the most powerful drivers of sustainability in drone operations is data. Today’s drones are equipped with sensors that gather vast amounts of data—data that can be analyzed at speed by increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence tools. This means that operators have a wealth of information to help monitor the sustainability of their fleet and report on key metrics, such as the energy consumption per parcel, or the impact of increasing the payload. It all helps to inform day-to-day operations, such as optimizing flight routes, as well as future development of drone hardware.

Challenges and Solutions: Overcoming Sustainability Hurdles

While drones offer a sustainable alternative to traditional delivery methods, any new technology inevitably brings its own challenges. One of the main concerns around drone delivery is noise pollution, particularly around residential areas. Route planning can help to mitigate this, by plotting drone routes above busy roads. It’s also something that can be tackled at the design stage: the size and positioning of propellers can make a big difference.

The manufacture, warehousing and disposal of drones also present challenges. Building sustainable practices into every step of the logistics chain, whether it’s switching to solar-powered warehouse buildings or establishing a robust recycling program for drones at the end of their life, will help to overcome these hurdles.

Conclusion

For many businesses, hitting your ESG goals starts with a sustainable supply chain, and drone technology is the key to making this happen. Lower energy consumption, reduced fuel emissions and improved efficiency make drone delivery a sustainable solution. However, it’s important to look beyond individual journeys when assessing the overall environmental impact of drone technology, and to seek every opportunity to incorporate data analysis along the way.