Abstract
Disruptive Technologies represent a challenge to environmental assessments as little information concerning products and or services is available to researchers due to commercial sensitivities (Neuberger, 2007). Drone delivery represents one of the most innovative innovation forms of goods carriage, therefore has the potential to help breaking the fossil fuel supremacy that dominates the transportation sector (Yowtak et al., 2020). Nevertheless, solely relyingHowever, It is not yet clear if on an electric powered supplied system is not enough to guarantee that the disruptive technology will not fall under the `business-as-usual category . The Mi-Drone (www.marei.ie project mi-drone)¬ is a drone delivery project aspiring to develop the technology to scale up drone manufacturing. The project is aligned with a more sustainable delivery as a service to the fast-food industry, the pharmacy industry, and the grocery industry. In order to create a foundation to assess the environmental impacts of drones and concurrent delivery vehicles aA literature review on the state of the art of comparative life cycle assessments (LCA) was conducted to create a foundation to assess the environmental impacts of drones and concurrent delivery vehicles. The review has revealed that varied scenarios of business models led to contrasting outcomes regarding LCA. Moreover, the functional unity constituents have steered different scenarios throughout the goal and scope phase that later impacted the input data on the inventory phase. This work aims to expand the current discourse of sustainability that has been shaping the drone delivery scenario and provide a critical thought analysis about disruptive technology environmental assessments.
| Original language | English (Ireland) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Environ 2022 |
| Place of Publication | Belfast |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2022 |
Authors (Note for portal: view the doc link for the full list of authors)
- Authors
- Steinbach, J; Mitchell, S
