Approval for Drone Delivery airline
It has been announced that the “Federal Aviation Administration has given UPS approval to run a drone fleet,” therefore enabling the company to create a UAV delivery airline.
The company has been awarded a Part 135 Certification, which according to UPS means that there are “no limits to the size or scope of operations” that could be carried out by drones. UPS claims that they are “the first firm to achieve such a high-level certification for drones” which puts them one step ahead of the competition in “race for unmanned commercial delivery” as other companies such as Google, Apple and Uber are also trying to implement “wide-scale drone delivery”.
UPS’ first certified drone delivery contained medical supplies for the WakeMed hospital in North Carolina and while UPS will continue to use this technology to deliver packages to the healthcare industry, it plans to “eventually start making residential deliveries”. While it remains unknown as to how long it will take for a commercial drone delivery network that is available country-wide to be implemented, it looks like drones are set to be part of the delivery service.
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General Motors Strike Continues
General Motors staff have been on strike since September 16th resulting in the production of its cars being halted. With uncertainty as to when the strike will end, dealerships are “starting to feel the pinch” as parts become harder to source. The dealers are experiencing a variety of problems as while some say they have stock to last a few months, others say they are having to “turn down jobs” because the availability of parts is so limited.
The vice president for the Center for Automotive Research, Kristin Dziczek, advised that “the parts shortage is likely to get worse” the longer the strike continues due to the supply of part in inventories being “usually pretty light”. With the uncertainty surrounding how long the strike will continue for, it looks like the supply of both General Motors cars and parts will continue to be affected.
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2020 deforestation pledges will be missed
In 2010, both Nestle, and Procter & Gamble pledged to create a supply chain that would contribute to no-deforestation by 2020. However, after the U.N. Climate Action Summit, where some investors pushed for “companies to step up deforestation efforts after more than a month of fires in the Amazon rainforest”, both companies have announced that they will not achieve what they initially pledged to do so.
The pledges were made back in 2010 after the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) advised big companies to take action to reduce deforestation in their supply chain. “Hundreds of companies have made 2020 zero deforestation pledges”, according to the CGF director of sustainability, Ignacio Gavilan, and suggested that more companies could miss their own targets due to them underestimating “increasing demand for consumer goods and lax government forest regulations.”
While both companies may not achieve zero deforestation by 2020, Nestle predicts that although they will miss their target, “over 90 percent of [their] key agricultural commodities” will be verified as deforestation-free at the end of 2020.
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Have a great weekend!
