Libération: Starship Robots may reduce delivery sector's environmental footprint

Estonia's company Starship Robots has been described as a possible solution to reduce ecological footprints in the delivery supply chain, the French newspaper Libération reported.
Libération interviewed the co-founder of Starship Robots, focusing first on the novelty of delivery robots. "In 2014, when we launched the project, it seemed to be a futurist idea. What is really futurist, in reality, is not to have autonomous robots, but to use them to create a logistic networks and put them to use for our clients," Ahti Heinla told the paper.
He explained that while the company is continuously testing its robots in Tallinn, a full expansion is easier in the U.S because permission has been granted.
Heinla denied that robots were taking jobs away from people. "We think that, even in our own company, we can create much more interesting jobs than delivering sandwiches in fifteen minutes," he said.
Libération also focused on the Starship Robots' environmental impact. While deliveries have become commonplace in our everyday lives, they negatively impact humanity's ecological footprint.
But Heinla claimed "delivery robots are the best solution possible, since they are light, and only consume energy to move themselves, not to move a human". He said the amount of energy needed per delivery is equivalent boiling water for a cup of tea.
The French newspapers explained that because of that low consumption of energy, delivery robots could be a solution for "the last-mile delivery". This refers to the final stretch of a parcel's journey from a distribution center to the final customer.
This phase of the journey contributes approximately "30 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the logistics sector", Kardinal, a logistics company, found. Vehicles are most commonly used to make these trips, which creates extra pollution.
However, the real reduction of ecological footprints by delivery robots is still known. As Sustainability Times, a newspaper specializing in green news, explains, robots still have a low carrying capacity. They need a charging station nearby to be effective. Robots also have to be powered by clean electricity to be carbon neutral – such as with solar panels – which put many conditions for them to be effectively used across various cities.
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Editor: Julie Capelle, Helen Wright