Sustainable Automation Journey

The trend of urbanization started in developed countries, first. More and more people have been moving from rural to urban regions, mainly due to industrialization and digitalization. Cities and urban areas were seen as the places where progress happens and wealth was created. After that, this trend has also started in developing countries.

The impact of urbanization is manifold and ranges from very positive to very negative for society and nature. On the one hand, with higher income levels, the need for an eco-friendly lifestyle occurs, which drives R&D efforts to make urban areas smarter and greener. Also the effort to transport people can be streamlined and more accurately predicted. Studies show that people in urban areas tend to have a lower birth rate than people in rural areas.

On the other hand, a lot of processes that are now centralized are getting more and more complex, for instance when it comes to infrastructure or food supply. Also the costs of living as well as other costs tend to explode because the demand for a specific good or service gets really high. This could cause a larger gap between the poor and the rich and as a result, it makes life in urban areas an exclusive privilege.

For companies, that means that they have to rethink their supply chains and storage solutions. Since the storage capacity in urban areas is limited, other approaches are needed.