Biomimicry

What Is Biomimicry?

“Bios” means life, “Mimicry” means imitate. Biomimicry is the practice of learning from and then emulating life’s genius to solve human problems and create more sustainable designs. Biomimicry is a branch of science, a problem-solving method, a sustainability ethos, a movement, a stance toward nature, and a new way of viewing and valuing biodiversity.

Why Biomimicry? Why now?

Organisms and ecosystems face the same challenges that we humans do, but they meet those challenges sustainably. The premise of biomimicry is that Life has been performing design experiments in Earth’s R&D lab for 3.85 billion years and what is flourishing on the planet today are the best ideas – those that perform well in context, while economizing on energy and materials. Whatever the design challenge, the odds are high that one or more of the world’s 30 million creatures has not only faced the same challenge, but has evolved effective strategies to solve it.

The selective pressure placed on all natural life forms minimizes and removes failures. Organisms are the consummate physicists, chemists, and engineers, and ecosystems are economies beyond compare. They can provide us with innovative and progressive solutions to the design, engineering and other challenges that we now face: energy, food production, climate control, benign chemistry, transportation, packaging, and more. The vision is to create products, processes, organizations, and policies—new ways of living—that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul. ”Doing it nature’s way” has the potential to change the way we grow food, make materials, harness energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business.