Supply Chain Tracking
with the Ambient Internet of Things
Could tracking products through the supply chain increase sustainability?
In carbon accounting, the more detailed and specific data you can get, the more reliable your carbon footprint or emissions estimate will be.
We've looked at the potential of tracking individual packages and products as they travel through the supply chain, not just for carbon accounting but for insights into efficiency gains and to help reuse products in a circular economy. We also look at some of the concerns about this emerging technology which need addressing as it gains popularity.
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What is the Ambient Internet of Things (IoT)?
Most of us have had some experience with the Internet of Things – when a product we use transmits data to the Internet. Checking the temperature of your lounge and then using an app to turn the heating on before you get home, and checking your watch to see how many steps you’ve taken, both use the Internet of Things.
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The Ambient Internet of Things is a network of small data collection devices, stuck onto products, that collect data from their surroundings – location, temperature and humidity. The devices can be battery-free, powered by radio waves sent from special receivers at key points along the product’s journey that also collect their data and transmit it to a cloud-hosted platform. Other versions have small long-life batteries.
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A punnet of grapes is loaded into a truck, then onto a ship, then a refrigerated truck, then a warehouse and finally onto a shelf at your local supermarket. It has an Ambient Internet of Things device, called an IoT Pixel, stuck to it, collecting data on its original location, its travel time and route and the different temperatures and humidity along the way. These details are sent to the Internet platform, and analysed for insights into the punnet's journey conditions.
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If food is transported more slowly to reduce its transport emissions, does that reduce its shelf life and so increase food waste? Ambient IoT could help work out these kinds of trade-offs.
Benefits of Ambient IoT
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1. More reliable carbon accounting
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Carbon footprinting for businesses and for product life cycle assessments (LCAs) have to use average emissions factors, so differences in emissions between products are often hidden. These assessments are usually done annually, or even less frequently for LCAs, so they are slow to drive emission reduction actions. By tracking the exact journey of products in real time, and recording transport mode, speed and weather conditions, businesses can achieve a higher level of accuracy in their carbon accounting. This is especially relevant for products whose transportation makes up a relatively high proportion of their carbon footprint.
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2. Supply chain efficiencies
Being able to see a product's journey in real time can shine a light on inefficiencies in the supply chain. A product might get stuck in one location for too long, or be stored in suboptimal conditions of heat or humidity. The software platform – which is receiving data from the IoT pixels stuck in that warm crate – alerts that there's a problem and it can be addressed in real time, quickly resolving one-off issues and highlighting habitual problems.
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For fresh food, ambient IoT could give insights into two key ways to reduce emissions. Transport accounts for around 5 - 10% of total food emissions globally, whilst food waste accounts for a bit more, around 15%. Sometimes there are trade-offs between the two: transporting food more slowly reduces transport emissions, but does it also shorten the food's shelf life thereby increasing food waste? Is it better to travel through a storm that might bruise the food as it bumps along, or to travel in calmer but hotter weather? IoT data could answer how best to get your apples and bananas from A to B, and even which food to sell first, based on its journey conditions, helping reduce food waste.
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For companies where transport accounts for a significant portion of GHG emissions, efficiencies in transport could help lower costs as well as carbon. For Royal Mail, a post and parcel delivery company in the UK, 63% of their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions are from road transport. They've added Wiliot's IoT pixels to all 850,000 of the cages that transport letters and parcels between their mail distribution centres and HGV trucks. The level of detail from real-time reporting from each IoT pixel will allow them to optimise vehicle loads and increase the efficiency of their transportation. In the future, they hope to be able to show customers the carbon footprint of different transport options for their post.
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3. Closing the loop to boost the circular economy
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In a circular economy products are reused in their current form, before considerations around recycling the component parts. The EU has brought in regulations that make producers more responsible for the end-of-life recycling or disposal of their products (the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) and policies like these make reusable containers economically more attractive.
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Tracking containers helps with two of the biggest problems with reusable containers. First, it stops them getting lost. Sensize, a company that tracks packing crates, report a staggering 90% drop in lost crates once they are tagged and tracked. The second problem in a circular system that might include a number of producers, distribution centres and retailers, is having the right number of crates in the right place at the right time. Again, tracking each crate helps optimise the movements, and can often result in a decrease in the overall number of crates needed.
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Tracking reusable packing crates can reduce the lost quantity by a staggering 90%.
Concerns oabout Ambient IoT
1. Environmental impact of devices
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Tracking packing or mail crates requires thousands of devices, but tracking individual products increases that to millions or even billions of devices. Building circularity and reuse into these product designs will be crucial to minimise their material and waste impacts.
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​2. Efficiency of business-as-usual isn't enough
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Tackling the climate crisis means fundamentally rethinking the amount we produce and consume. Focusing on efficiency gains within existing supply chains risks masking the need shift away from a linear system of 'produce, consume, dispose' to a circular economy where products and materials are reused multiple times.
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3. Privacy concerns over tracking devices
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IoT devices are designed to be used on inert products, not people. But they could be used to track individuals, raising serious privacy concerns. They could also track data from the consumers who purchase products with IoT devices attached and keep sending data back to the Internet. There are already technologies that are more intrusive than IoT devices, and strict regulations control their use. Strong and enforced regulations and ethical product design will be needed to ensure that IoT devices are only used for their intended purpose.
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Read our full thought piece on the potential of the Ambient Internet of Things:
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