Analyzing the Benefits of Biomimicry in Society
Amidst what many consider the peak era of capitalism, design, and innovation has emerged as the driving factors in a growing market where concepts have translated into tangible value, just as labor and mass production has fallen to the sideline as inefficient and outdated. Companies like Tesla dominate the market, not through the value of their products so far. However, more so because of the plans the energy vehicle company has carved out in what appears to be soon one of the most competitive markets globally. In the late90s and early 2000s, we had the internet make its way into homes. Back then, the internet was primarily conceptual but unprecedently quick in its ability to adapt and carve its way into society. Now, as a generation that grew up watching An Inconvenient Truth emerges as one of the most politically engaged generations in years, it seems sustainability is up next. While that is promising news for green initiatives, in the post-Trump administration that few would have called "pro-environment," it is imperative to take steps towards an entire infrastructural shift towards sustainability. If Tesla has shown us anything, the easiest way to do that is to create a profitable market for it.
Enter biomimicry, a technological approach for problem-solving, taking inspiration from natural selection solutions seen in the environment and bringing those principles to world issues through applications with human engineering. Evolution has created some of the most efficient designs across the globe. Although, in our pursuit of a genuinely sustainable society, unfortunately, "despite increasing biomimicry research, an inquiry into infrastructure opportunities for biomimicry has been limited, and the potential for biomimicry to support regenerative performance in infrastructure has not been explored." (Hayes, 2020). This essay will highlight some of the world's biomimicry applications and what the future might look like with these templates as a reference.
Sustainability encompasses more than just renewable resources, and at the heart of its core values, reducing excess should be towards the top of initiatives looking at infrastructural change. Biomimicry exhibits this principle perfectly, with minimalism designed into nature serving as an excellent template for project inspiration. As a recent study looking at some of the more unique applications towards 3D Printing in the future discusses, "One key concept in nature is that material usage works on the principle of "just enough." Natural structures should not have excess material, as this will not only incur an unnecessary energetic cost but also add additional weight to its bearer, which, from a biological point-of-view, is often a non-optimal strategy." (Brillas, 2021). By looking at "just enough" when it comes to something like architecture, the benefits far outweigh the costs, especially when it comes to energy expenses. Minimalism in design, where sleek and to-the-point construction has slowly taken over from the Gothic, and Victorian tendencies towards magnificent displays represent a trend where building planning is already ahead of the curve. However, there is still plenty to improve on. Building codes typically expect particular strides towards sustainability already. However, with concepts like photovoltaics and urban gardening already taking shape, major scale projects in cities can look to biomimicry for inspiration on how to fit into the overall world with as little impact as possible.
Utility extends far beyond design, of course. A recent 2020 analytical study on sustainable adaption using biomimicry scientists highlighted the extensive benefits in the world already. Table 1 below ranges from Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Panels, offering low-cost and efficiently produced electricity by artificial photosynthesis, to Sage and Quantum glass, a product inspired by the bobtail squid and hummingbirds, which allows for electrochromic intelligent windows for energy savings leading to reduced cooling and heating energy costs (Sai Harsha, 2020). Beyond direct products, biomimicry's underlying principles can help inspire strategy, even at an entrepreneurial level. A 2019 study on some of this utility found that beyond the general of waste reduction and minimizing energy expenditures, "the incorporation of Life's Principles (e.g., be locally attended, use life-friendly chemistry) into biomimicry theorizing instinctively forces the application of sustainable practices into the final solution. These strategies provide an important "self-check" step to ensure that potentially detrimental strategies are reworked to be more sustainable. (e.g., new venture growth is balanced by what the environment can sustain rather than growing unchecked, leading to the potential destruction of the surrounding environment)." (Fernhaber, 2019). In layman's terms, biomimicry forces a businessman to recognize the environment's constraints and behave accordingly concerning those limitations.
Product/Technology/Innovation
Nature inspiration
Function
Problem Solved
Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Panels
Cooke's koki'o (photosynthesis)
Low-cost and efficiently produced electricity by artificial photosynthesis.
Solar panels are Eco-friendly
Eastgate Building, Harare, Zimbabwe
Termites and termite's mounds
Night cooling, thermal storage and convective air currents regulating temperature thereby reducing energy cost (heating and cooling).
Quickly adapt to change in outside temperature
Hot Zone radiant heater, using Irlens
Lobster
Focused spot heating towards user.
Energy efficient
bioWAVE
Bull kelp
Wave energy harnessed for power generation.
Harnessing energy from directional wave
Biolytix System
Earth ecosystem
Water filtration and treatment system
Engineered soil eco system
COMOLEVI Forest Canopy
Shadow trees
Cooling effect created by design of a leaf
Overheating solved
Eco-Machine
Woodlands
Chemical free waste water purifier
Wastewater management
Sage Glass, Quantum Glass (Europe)
Bobtail squid,hummingbird
Electrochromic smart windows for energy savings.
Reduced cooling/heating energy costs
Aquaporin Membrane Technology
Lipid bilayer of living cells (cell membrane)
Membrane filtration technology for safe drinking water.
Thermodynamically lowest energy level water filtration systems.
Eco-Cement
Snail in sea
Strength-enhancing carbon and neutral impounding cement.
Reduced release of CO2 during production
Chaac-ha
Spiders and Bromeliads
Rainwater and dew water system.
Water rejuvenation
Self-repairing concrete
Fauna & human skin
Ability to repair themselves quickly and effectively.
Deteriorating concrete structures; pollution, resource usage & energy consumption of traditional concrete production.
Table 1. Biologically inspired strategies in the fields of energy management and sustainability. Table from Sai Harsha, Movva, and Velpula Sree Lakshmi. "An Analytical Approach to Sustainable Building Adaption Using Biomimicry." Materials Today: Proceedings, vol. 33, 2020, pp. 514–518., doi:10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.207.
Nevertheless, perhaps most importantly is biomimicry's potential for replacing some of the many harmful practices we are reliant on to function. For example, take chemical and water resistance, which is typically dependent on synthetic design through often toxic formulas. A 2014 study on applications of bacteria and slime molds found that "investigations of bacterial communities have shown a multiscale slime-like matrix that can repel water, in addition to a variety of other liquids, including ethanol and acetone, with further development of technologies based on biofilm topography may yield a new generation of water and chemical resistant materials." (Lurie-Luke, 2014). These kinds of well-developed labyrinths seen in nature, be it in the composition of slime molds or the contoured chutes in a tree's root system, prove that some of the most innovative designs are built from simple beginnings. Whereas designers historically have had to pioneer original ideas to combat problems presented, biomimicry offers a template for innovative and simple solutions. Theories like energy return on investment or resilience ecological-stress models showcase how biomimicry can extend into our systems approach and even economics mimicking nature at some fundamental level. Wyatt Meldman-Floch, a former NASA scientist and current CTO and Co-Founder of Constellation Labs, a blockchain and cryptocurrency company, cited biomimicry as the inspiration for his design. "Constellation's network topology resembles a scale-free network. This structure pops up in the natural ecosystem or the cosmos (correlation does not imply causation, but the universe looks like a dendrogram, so does a neuron and a tree, etc.) because they are systems that are continuously applying some optimization rule, typically based in the reduction of entropy. It is an optimization problem that acts effectively like a balancing act. In the same way that plants and animals die, are reborn and transmuted into different forms of energy, our network needs to autonomously reorganize itself, like an ecosystem adapting to climate change." Without diving into the intricacies of cryptocurrency, Meldman-Floch's words summarize simply enough; network design should be resilient and sustainable from the ground up, and there is no better inspiration than nature itself.
This global network has certainly proven durable, especially when considering some significant disasters in the broad span of Earth's life. At the same time, the caveat of social Darwinism does present some grim implications for humanity. Nature offers optimism, especially when considering the resilience of systems in the wake of a natural disaster. Contrary to its impact on humans, events like forest fires or hurricanes have been accounted for evolutionarily and rarely, if ever, pose the same scale of devastating damages long-term. Mitigation efforts from greenhouse gases to oil spills offer restorative solutions through evolved and efficient techniques. A 2017 study on climate change discusses, "during its 3.8 billion years of existence [Earth] has evolved with highly efficient processes and systems, with the potential to produce solutions to the environmental challenges facing mankind, especially climate change." (Aanuoluwapo, 2017). This makes sense when approached practically; a 2019 study on soil salinization remediation utilized evapotranspiration to translocate salinic soil water from surface levels found to succeed, showing that "in a span of one month our work reduced soil EC [electrical conductivity] by a factor of 10 and removed 90% of added salts while using proportionally less water than traditional soil washing techniques. Sustained dendritic crystal growth appears to have depended on maintaining capillary connections between the crystal growth front and the soil solution along with supersaturation of salt ions within the surface wicking material." (Swallow, 2019). Projects like this endeavor are ongoing worldwide and should continue to be at the forefront of mitigation efforts, mainly if it means replacing any synthetic alternative. Policies like the Green New Deal highlight tons of subsidies for renewable energies and mitigation efforts from a company standpoint, actual grants for research at institutional levels need to be more of an emphasis in our pursuit of mitigating climate change moving forward. Biomimicry has succeeded before and will succeed again, with or without humanity's influence.
At the basis of every natural design is one core principle – survival. Not just of the specimen in question, because an individual never gauges success in nature, but instead that of the system as a whole, something humanity has just recently recognized in its stride towards sustainability. As the Spanish philosopher George Santayana famously said, "Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it." Biomimicry can undoubtedly serve as inspiration. However, even more, important is its role as a simple reminder that the world has been around successfully for longer than we have and that we do not have to tackle every obstacle it presents to us alone. Other species and phenomena have been accomplishing it far more efficiently than we have for centuries already. Biomimicry is fundamental going forward, not just for physical design and production but also as a means of re-adapting our mindset towards a more sustainable future moving forward.
Works Cited
• Aanuoluwapo, Oguntona Olusegun, and Aigbavboa Clinton Ohis. "Biomimetic Strategies for Climate Change Mitigation in the Built Environment." Energy Procedia, vol. 105, 2017, pp. 3868–3875., doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.792.
• Brillas, Enric, et al. "Biomimicry Designs for Photoelectrochemical Systems: Strategies to Improve Light Delivery Efficiency." Current Opinion in Electrochemistry, vol. 26, 2021, p. 100660., doi:10.1016/j.coelec.2020.100660.
• Fernhaber, Stephanie A., and Alyssa Y. Stark. "Biomimicry: New Insights for Entrepreneurship Scholarship." Journal of Business Venturing Insights, vol. 12, 2019, doi:10.1016/j.jbvi.2019.e00137.
• Hayes, Samantha, et al. "Learning from Nature – Biomimicry Innovation to Support Infrastructure Sustainability and Resilience." Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 161, 2020, p. 120287., doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120287.
• Lurie-Luke, Elena. "Product and Technology Innovation: What Can Biomimicry Inspire?" Biotechnology Advances, vol. 32, no. 8, 2014, pp. 1494–1505., doi:10.1016/j.biotechadv.2014.10.002.
• Meldman-Floch, Wyatt. "Engineering Economies with Natural Law". De:Centralize 2018. 5-6 April 2018, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore.
• Sai Harsha, Movva, and Velpula Sree Lakshmi. "An Analytical Approach to Sustainable Building Adaption Using Biomimicry." Materials Today: Proceedings, vol. 33, 2020, pp. 514–518., doi:10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.207.
• Swallow, Mathew J.B., and Gwen O'Sullivan. "Biomimicry of Vascular Plants as a Means of Saline Soil Remediation." Science of The Total Environment, vol. 655, 2019, pp. 84–91., doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.245.
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