Five Questions With A Biomimicry Expert
We sat down with Richard James MacCowan, Founder and biofuturist of the Biomimicry Innovation Lab, to learn why learning about Biomimicry is so useful for creative problem-solving and innovation.
1. Why is biomimicry a helpful tool for innovation?
As designers, engineers, or innovators, we look for fresh ideas within and outside our industries. Looking to nature for inspiration is one such approach. What makes this useful is that you are opening up to phenomena in the natural world that overcome challenges in vastly different ways.
Instead of vast amounts of energy and materials, we can explore ways to do this differently. We can look at recombinations using different materials and low-energy systems to make things stronger, more flexible, and out of biological materials.
Now, you can apply this across various industries, and we see this as we understand more about the natural world. So keep an eye out for what is coming from evolutionary biology and ecology scientists. We are making exciting discoveries as we develop tools to look deeper into the world around us.
2. What are the common myths about biomimicry?
One of the most common myths is that it will automatically lead to sustainable solutions. At best, we find environmental solutions, but with sustainability, there is the complexity of working with the organisation's ESG frameworks and the challenges this faces.
Remember, there is no such thing as a sustainable product, but there can be a sustainable product system.
Another myth is that there are universal rules/laws in nature. Scientists are still searching for these universal rules/principles/patterns. The natural world is so vast and complex for overarching rules.
That said, you should consider developing a glossary of terms for your own projects. This will help you narrow down your search for scientific discoveries in evolutionary biology and ecology.
There is a handy recent paper published by Guillaume Lecointre, the head of the Natural History Museum in Paris, and a brilliant review of it by Marc Weissburg, Professor of Ecology and Director of Biologically Inspired Design at GeorgiaTech.
To summarise, we must understand enough about evolutionary biology and scientific methods of exploration to develop a greater awareness of them.
This can be achieved by ensuring we don’t use "Nature" as the subject of sentences. This is inaccurate, as it implies that nature has agency and intention. Attributing human traits like parsimony, intelligence, and rationality to nature is erroneous.
Logic is a property of the observer, not the phenomenon being observed. Metaphors like "natural strategies, designs, programs or plans" are anthropocentric and limit understanding of biology's processes. Humans design purposefully using shapes to achieve functions.
In contrast, nature generates tremendous random variation that is then filtered by constraints through natural selection. Function maintains and drives changes in form. Patterns in nature result from a complex combination of mathematical, physical, chemical, and biological principles operating in parallel, not just biology alone. Even function-determining form is teleological, and alongside the other examples, it can perpetuate misconceptions about the living world.
Here are some other myths:
The living world doesn’t waste: Evolutionary processes require considerable energy expenditure, and while natural selection favours minimising energy use, recycling organic material is not infallible and can take millions of years.
The living world optimises, not maximises: Living systems result from trade-offs filtered by environmental constraints, not true optimisation, and traits are more accurately described as the "best under the circumstances".
Cooperation is more important than competition: While mutually beneficial relationships exist in living systems, they are not necessarily more significant than predation and parasitism.
Nature uses only the energy it needs and relies on freely available energy: Both internal and external constraints can lead to higher energy expenditure in reproduction than might be inferred from observing adult populations.
Nature is resilient to disturbances: Ecosystems and biological entities are only resilient to disturbances within certain limits, and crossing disturbance thresholds can irreversibly change the ecosystem's identity.
Nature uses chemistry and materials that are safe for living beings: Whether the chemicals and materials synthesised within biological systems are "safe" depends on the species in question, their life history stage, their environmental context, and the quantity of the chemical compound; nevertheless, almost all are ultimately biodegradable, given sufficient time and the right environmental conditions.
Some of the case studies that have proven to have gotten the science wrong, or a loose link to the living world, include the whale-inspired wind turbine blades, the Eastgate Center in Zimbabwe, the bullet train, shark-inspired swimsuit, the Eiffel Tower, forest-floor-inspired floor tile, and gecko-inspired tape for floor tiles.
3. What are some brilliant examples of commercialised biomimicry-inspired innovation?
Many great examples are emerging from research labs worldwide and making the leap to a fully commercialised product. I love Sharklet Technologies, not only for the story behind it but also for its applications in healthcare, sportswear, and even kids' toys.
Their development of the product initially for shipping and then pivoting into these sectors shows me the value of the team behind it and the ability to see value across industries.
A relatively unknown example that began in the 1930s is the Schmitt (or Thermionic) Trigger. Otto Schmitt was exploring how to convert fuzzy electrical signals into stable ones and spent time discovering how squid nerves do the same. Unless you work in electronics, you will not know about this.
But the trigger is used in everything from your computer keyboard to your home thermostat, microwave, car, and even eclectic drum machines. This is one of the best examples. It may not be a shiny car, but it’s a novel solution to a problem that allows much of our equipment to work.
Finally, Wilhelm Barthlott and his colleagues' work on the lotus effect in the 1970s discovered the ultra-hydrophobicity (super-slippery) of surfaces. The leaves of the Lotus flower exhibit these, hence the name! Many plants exhibit these properties to remove dirt and water.
Given that photosynthesis isn’t highly efficient (around 1-2%), these plants evolved to ensure that they can capture as much sunlight as possible. Companies such as Stocoat and its Lotusan paint have developed paint that cleans when it gets wet. This is great for when it rains or for easy cleaning when you have kids. I like exploring this area of surface engineering and discovering what will hopefully make it to market.
To explore future ideas, find your favourite research lab and watch their publications. Hopefully, in 5-10 years, these will be on the market or seen if it’s shallow-tech.
4. What are the biggest mistakes people make when applying biomimicry?
They tend to rush in with a solution, looking for a problem. Many get far too excited about exploring the living world rather than understanding the nature of the challenges faced. I used challenges rather than problems, as some of these cannot be solved.
It’s natural, but it’s something shiny and new to many. This can lead to fallacies about newness and about the living world itself. You see this in marketing, whereby just because something is natural, it’s better.
So, we need to understand the nature of our challenges. What does the large system look like? Do we need to look to the living world for solutions, or are there even solutions in other industries that have been scaled and can be transferred? Biomimicry is about taking analogies from the living world by studying forms, functions, processes, and interactions. So, you can do this concurrently by taking analogies from other industries.
Another mistake is that many assume that learning a process gives you the skill to create innovations. You have to develop specific skills and experience to be successful. We are in a place where everyone is selling processes, not just in biomimicry (or nature-inspired innovation, as I prefer).
It’s one thing to be aware of various design and engineering processes, but it’s another to make it work and succeed. If that were the case, everybody would be Steve Jobs, or by wearing Nike Air Jordans, I would be Micheal!
Another mistake is not understanding the basics of evolutionary biology and ecology. You need to explore these fields and get used to reading research papers (or use GenAI to help you translate them). Science isn’t static, and it’s helpful to understand the changes and where scientists have discovered new insights.
This field is really about the study of evolutionary biology and ecology—the science of the living world and their interactions with the world around them.
So, although this field may not be for everyone, we are using our course to highlight enough through the lessons and further reading that you can see the value in looking to the living world and those rebels who are developing solutions fit for the 21st century.
5. What resources can you recommend for people interested in learning more about this topic?
We did go overboard in the course with additional resources, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, given the vast array of diversity and scale in the living world. I do point people to AskNature. It is a great start, and you should use it as such.
You won’t find everything on there, but it will allow you a starting point to find forms, functions, processes, and interactions and how they relate to each other. You can then use these to build up keywords and phrases used in science to explore academic research or catalogues at your local Natural History Museum in greater detail.
I also enjoy Zygote Quarterly, a digital magazine that highlights new inventions and interviews experts in the field. The editors ensure everything is accessible, and it’s a wonderfully colourful publication to explore over the past many years.
Start delving into physics. All the other sciences are derived from it anyway. Sharklet Technologies, as I mentioned earlier, is about the physics of sharkskin dentacles. They then explored how they could scale the size of the dentacles to make the materials cheaper to produce but still have the bacterial-inhibiting performance.
Students and those within the industry often ask me why they cannot find many examples. Here’s a little tip: Many different phrases are essentially the same, no matter what people try to sell you!
So search and use these words: biomimetic(s), bioinspiration, bionic(s), nature-inspired, and biomimicry. My team of researchers and I explored this in research and interviews and found that most people don’t get hung up about the word; it's more about scientific discoveries and solving problems.
Do this for books, videos, and podcasts. It will give you access to many more resources than just using biomimicry. I have regular feeds across industries doing just this.
Finally, to understand this field, you should really explore in detail what problem/challenge the case study addressed and what outcomes it delivered.
Did it also find an unmet need? If so, it is likely to be successful if all the other moving parts in its business also work.
Keen to learn more about applying Biomimicry to your work? Check out our Biomimicry course featuring industry experts and fascinating case studies.
