Greenr - Accelerate the Change!

In a series titled “Just Imagine“, CNN seeks answers to the question “What will life be like in 2020?”. Here’s one from biomimicry pioneer, Janine Benyus:

I think that if we really pay attention and we become nature’s apprentice, if we begin to learn from these designs and recipes and strategies in the natural world and we recreate our technologies in that image.

I believe that every organism that I can see is sweetening this place. I think if we were to learn from their strategies, we too might be participants in that process, not depleting this place that sustains us, but actually enhancing it to the point where it becomes more and more conducive to life. Continued at CNN…

Another in this series looks at learning from humpback whales that could impact the way heart pacemakers are designed.

And one more - a great photo series. Thanks CNN!

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On October 20th, The Biomimicry Institute in conjunction with the annual Bioneers conference will be holding a one-day conference “Biomimicry’s Climate-Change Solutions: How Would Nature Do It?”

This landmark one-day intensive reveals the leading edge of biomimetic solutions to climate change, modeled on nature’s operating instructions. It’s designed for action-oriented professionals from the fields of business, finance and investment, science, technology, public policy, education, media and civil society.

Find out more and sign up now!

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A few weeks ago I acquired the www.biomimicry.com domain. Presently it redirects to a list of greenr.com articles tagged with ‘biomimicry’…like this one. My plan for biomimicry.com is yet to be formed - maybe you have some ideas? Meanwhile here are fine starting points if you want to dig deeper:

The Biomimicry Guild: “The only innovation company in the world to use a deep knowledge of biological adaptations to help designers, engineers, architects, and business leaders solve design and engineering challenges sustainably.”

The Biomimicry Institute: “The not-for-profit organization whose mission is to nurture and grow a global community of people who are learning from, emulating, and conserving life’s genius to create a healthier, more sustainable planet.”

Natures 100 Best: “A shortlist of one hundred technologies that are all inspired by proven design systems from Nature. This summary is only a small component of this long-term research project that aims to identify key technologies that will help society and industry to leapfrog towards sustainability.”

Send me your favorites…

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Mainstream interest in biomimicry is accelerating. Jay Harman’s gives some (cautionary) insights into changing established large industries:

“When I started I thought that this would take 6 to 12 months,” Mr. Harman said. What he found instead were companies that had little interest in redesigning their products, even in the face of the promise of double-digit increases in efficiency.

His radical ideas have so far found a cautious reception in the aircraft, air- conditioning, boating, pump and wind turbine industries.
Mr. Harman’s experience is not unusual. Rather than beating a path to the door of mousetrap designers, the world seems to actively avoid them.

Continued at NYT.

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The UK’s Daily Telegraph offers up a series titled “Challenging Ideas” to help Honda launch their new Accord. Here’s an excerpt from the first in the short six-part series titled “Natural Leaders”:

‘Biomimicry introduces an era based not on what we can extract from organisms and their ecosystems, but on what we can learn from them,’ Janine M Benyus, the author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, says. ‘This approach differs greatly from bio-utilisation, which entails harvesting a product or producer, as in cutting wood for floors or wild-crafting medicinal plants. It is also distinctly different to bio-assisted technologies, which involve domesticating an organism to accomplish a function, for example, bacterial purification of water or cows bred to produce milk. Instead of harvesting or domesticating, biomimics consult organisms; they are inspired by an idea, be it a physical blueprint or a process step in a chemical reaction.’ Continued…

(I normally wouldn’t write a post linking to ‘advertorial“, but this is a useful short read. Here’s to more advertising that makes a genuine effort to inform.)

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According to Janine Benyus and Gunter Pauli, co-creators of the upcoming Nature’s 100 Best project:

Life solves its problems with well-adapted designs, life-friendly chemistry, and smart material and energy use. What better models could there be?

This week Pauli unveiled the project at Ninth Conference of Parties to Convention on Biological Diversity. A book showcasing their work, titled Nature’s 100 Best, will be published in May 09 and further content will be made available via

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A great overview of varied biomimetic solutions for some of our most pressing problems is offered by Australian energy blog The Oil Drum, including Australian startup BioPower and local (to San Francisco bay area) Pax Scientific (founded by an Australian). Clever folks those Aussies!

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Fortune’s David Kirkpatrick interviews the always-brilliant Jane Benyus, the woman who coined the phrase “Biomimicry” and who continues to inspire a generation with wisdom from the wild. See also CNN post.

Photo credit: TED.

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Paul Saffo is one of the world’s leading futurists so it’s great to see him talking up Biomimicry.

“And yet Saffo finds biomimicry — a term that describes biologically inspired design — just as interesting. For him, there’s symmetry between the architect who borrows from the working processes of the human body and nomadic workers who follow paths of least resistance to exploit their talents profitably, wherever those paths might take them.” More via Motley Fool…

Saffo said most famously “Our tendency to overestimate the short-term impact of a new technology, while underestimating the long-term impact.” Too often our world view is based on early hype that doesn’t pan out, which means many technologies (think solar or low flush toilets) take longer to go mainstream because of early bad experiences. Saffo’s comments keep us attentive to what lies over the horizon. Well worth reading.

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Ken Thompson, a former European IT Manager with Reuters, has mapped out a new organization model “bioteams” based, based on nature’s best designs:

In his book, Bioteams, Thompson offers a way to build exceptionally agile, high performing teams based on a thorough examination of the key communication principles that underpin nature’s most successful groups — from signal bursts of migrating flocks of geese, to the waggle dance of honeybees, to the pheromone trails laid down by ants. Based on nature’s communication patterns, he provides a complete set of practical techniques that have been proven with real teams in the field, whose stories are described in a comprehensive set of case studies in the book. According to Thompson, “Using the principles of bioteaming, command-and-control leadership gives way to connect-and-collaborate, where every member of an organizational team is a ‘leader.’ In nature and in bioteams, leaders don’t give commands, they transmit information, trusting the team members’ competencies and gaining accountability through transparency. True team leadership is about cooperation, not control. It’s about acting on opportunities, and letting others lead the leader when they know best about getting stuff done.”

Yesterday I participated in the quartely board meeting of the Biomimicry Institute and I’m pleased to report this book is just one of dozens of new initiatives based on nature’s billions of years of R&D.

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