The World is Ripe

Sometimes you just cannot be everywhere you want to be.  The eighth of September was one of those days for me, as Sustainable Silicon Valley (SSV) held a workshop on Designing for Sustainability through Biomimicry, and I was not available to go.  I heard from colleague Diana Lee of the Biomimicry Institute that SSV Executive Director Marianna Grossman did a great job (so typical!) and that the event was excellent.   If you weren’t there either, here’s your chance to catch up along with me.

SSV’s Manouri Nissanka wrote up a quick report of the Biomimicry Workshop event and posted it to SSV’s Ecocloud.  Thanks Manouri!  Her report includes some great resources, including Marianna’s presentation, and SSV’s Suparna Vashisht’s excellent compilation of information on Sustainable Design and Biomimicry.  I quote from Suparna, who quotes in turn from the Biomimicry Guild:

Why Use Biomimicry

According to the Biomimicry Guild, Biomimicry is an innovation method that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's time-tested patterns and strategies. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies---new ways of living---that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul.

Biomimicry can help companies create products and processes that…

…Are sustainable because Biomimicry follows Life‘s Principles. Life‘s Principles instruct us to build from the bottom up, self-assemble, optimize rather than maximize, use free energy, adapt and evolve, use life-friendly materials and processes, and enhance the bio-sphere.

… Perform well. In nature, if a design strategy is not effective, its carrier dies. Biomimicry helps you study the successful strategies of the survivors, so you can thrive in your marketplace.

… Save Energy: Energy in the natural world is even more expensive than in the human world. Emulating the efficiency strategies found in nature can dramatically reduce the energy use of your company.

… Cut Material Costs: Nature builds to shape, because shape is cheap and material is expensive. By studying the shapes of nature‘s strategies and how they are built, biomimicry can help you minimize the amount your company spends on materials while maximizing the effectiveness of your products patterns and forms to achieve their desired functions.

… Redefine and Eliminate ―Waste: By mimicking how nature transitions materials and nutrients within a habitat, your company can set up its various units and systems to optimally use resources and eliminate unnecessary redundancies.

… Heighten existing product categories: Biomimicry helps you see stale product categories in a radically different light. This new sight creates an opportunity for innovation.

… Define new product categories and industries: Biomimicry can help you create disruptive technologies, that transform your industry or help you build entirely new industries.

…Drive Revenue: Biomimicry can help you create whole new growth areas, reignite stale product categories and attract both customers who care about innovation and sustainability.

…Build Your Brand: Creating biomimetic products and processes will help your company become known as both innovative and proactive about the environment.

Fascinated by the potential power of Biomimicry?  Want to learn more?  Let its champion Janine Benyus, who just yesterday won another award (this one from The Heinz Foundation) tell you. Listen to Janine address the Nobel Laureate Symposium on Sustainability in Stockholm last month.   For more videos on Biomimicry, check out SMART Design Principles in our resources section. 

Because as Janine says:  "In a time when all of our certainties are crumbling, arrogance is also crumbling.  The world is ripe for a massive re-design".  I say: So pick your piece of this ripe world -- and re-design it!