It's easy to look back at 2021 and see all the bad news out there— a virus that keeps mutating, Suez Canal blockage, and supply chain disruption. If your life brings you anywhere near a supply chain (or even if it doesn't), you're probably feeling drowned with all the stories of shipping nightmares.
But believe it or not, there's been plenty of good news too. Great news, even! But in our little corner of the world, we're glass-half-full kind of people. We don't want to discount all of the past year's trials, but we want to take a break from the doom and gloom of the past twelve months and mention a few of our favorite developments from 2021.
Without further ado, here are four awesome things that we saw this past year:
1) COVID Vaccine Shipments - Technically, this started at the end of 2020. But it continued into this year, even as new variants of Covid-19 precipitated the need for boosters. AND it happened at a time when the supply chain was weighed down with all sorts of snags. Think about it. Two years ago, at this time, we were starting to hear about a virus that could put any one of us in the hospital. And now, millions of people have access to a newly developed drug that can likely ward off that unhappy fate. We call that a win for the cold chain.
2) Heightened Environmental Consciousness - As Covid-19 slowed the world down, many of us became more aware of the environmental impact of our actions. Nowhere was this more true than within the supply chain. These days, there are new sustainability efforts everywhere you turn, from new scrubbers on ocean container ships to carbon neutrality goals.
Not to brag, but Able Freight pursued environmental goals before they fell into fashion. We've chronicled some of our initiatives on our blog - click here to read about our sustainable aviation fuel partnership or here to see our plan to go plastic-free within two years.
3) A Technology Revolution - Is it fair to say that the supply chain experienced, er, growing pains over the past18 months? The upside of massive disruption, though, is that it tends to lead to investment and innovation. In this case, that's come in the form of new technology. With logistics awareness at a high, we see a lot of remarkable developments. And who knows what will be possible in the future.
4) Fighting Food Insecurity - Saving our favorite for last here. In March, Able Freight donated nearly 2,000 pounds of fresh food to fight hunger in our local community. As much as we love the tech side of logistics, it always comes back to the human aspect. In this case, that means reducing food waste and fighting hunger simultaneously.
We can't wait to see what these wins foreshadow for the future. Did we miss anything? If so, let us know!
