Green Innovation: The DHL-Eviation Partnership pushing for greener air cargo

If you’ve been following my blog, you will remember that my first post was discussing the importance of making our supply/value chains more sustainable if we truly wanted to make radical change on the way that business operations impact the environment. Well recently I’ve found an incredibly interesting innovation that DHL has been making to their value chain, this being looking to turn the cargo plane fleet electric (Spence 2021), an image of which can be seen below. 

- A concept image of DHLs future net zero shipping plane (DHL 2021)

Why this is so important? 

 

Aviation is one of the biggest contributors to global CO2 emissions in the modern world. Estimates place aviation’s contributions to greenhouse gas emissions at 3.5% of all of the planets emissions and with the increasing ease and frequency of international travel, this number could triple by 2050 (Overton 2019). 

 

In a delivery market where the speed of movement of goods is key to a delivery firm keeping its customers and its contract, air freight has become more widely demanded because of its speed. In order to make sure this increase in demand is met sustainably, it’s important for the solution to be designed with the health of the planet in mind. 

 

"Alice"- DHLs bet on electric air cargo

 

In partnership with Eviation, a leading an electric aircraft start-up, DHL has commissioned an order for the production and use of 12 Electric cargo planes in order to Push their long term goal of zero emission logistics .

Who are Eviation? The Isreali company was founded in 2015 by entrepreneurs Omer Bar Yohay, Omri Regev and Aviv Tzidon with the goal of creating sustainable and affordable air travel. 

- Eviation 2022 Logo 

Using a modified electric propulsion system common with military UAVs, Eviation claims it can deliver realistic impacts for more sustainable air travel. Their current flagship product is “Alice” ,is the world’s first all-electric commuter aircraft (Eviation 2022). 

 

- Concept art for the commercial version of the Alice

DHL has purchased twelve models of Alice, to be retrofitted for logistics operations across the United States (DHL 2022). The company claims that not only will the new plane be more environmentally sustainable with its zero emission flying, but also reduce costs to their bottom line as the planes battery can be quickly recharged while unloading and loading operations occur.

 

A long way to go

 

DHL currently owns 198 Aircraft in their global air freight fleet, tiny in comparison to Fedex with 669  Aircraft (Fedex 2022) and will likely be outpaced by Amazon over the coming years. 

- Figures above display the sizes of DHL and FedEx as shipping companies (Note that fedex makes much greater shipments per year.

The 12 planes they have ordered will be small minority of the current air fleet market. Time will tell whether the “Alice” has the intended impact DHL desires. No information has been disclosed about expanding the program beyond the USA.

Hopefully it does, because it will hopefully spur some larger logistics providers into updating their fleets for the better. 

References:

Spence, R. (2021). What’s next: The latest green innovations and milestones that give us hope. Available: https://www.corporateknights.com/issues/2021-11-education-and-youth-issue/whats-next-the-latest-green-innovations/. Last accessed Feb 10th 2022.

 

DHL. (2021). DHL EXPRESS SHAPES FUTURE FOR SUSTAINABLE AVIATION WITH THE ORDER OF FIRST-EVER ALL-ELECTRIC CARGO PLANES FROM EVIATION. Available: https://www.dhl.com/global-en/home/press/press-archive/2021/dhl-express-shapes-future-for-sustainable-aviation-with-the-order-of-first-ever-all-electric-cargo-planes-from-eviation.html. Last accessed Feb 10th 2022.

 

Eviation. (2022). Alice: The worlds first net zero electric plane. Available: https://www.eviation.com. Last accessed Feb 10th 2022.

 

 

Overton, J. (2019). Fact Sheet | The Growth in Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Commercial Aviation (2019). Available: https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-commercial-aviation. Last accessed Feb 10th 2022.

 

James, J. (2022). DHL Vs. FedEx Vs. UPS: Shipping Carriers Compared in 2022. Available: https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/overview-of-fedex-ups-and-dhl/. Last accessed Feb 10th 2022