The Biomimic: For Janine Benyus, who coined the term biomimicry, nature is model, measure and mentor

Source: Whole Life Times, online magazine
By E.B. Boyd

When Time magazine named Janine Benyus one of its “45 Heroes of the Environment” in October, it signaled that biomimicry had finally made it into the mainstream consciousness.

Biomimicry refers to the practice of looking to nature for ideas about how to create new designs. Benyus, a natural history writer who has now become the public face of the field, coined the term in her groundbreaking 1997 book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Benyus’s insights launched a revolution in how innovators think about design problems. Instead of starting from scratch or trying to create “better living through chemistry,” they looked to plants and animals to see how they were built, in the hopes of finding ideas that could be applied to new products. Today, the gecko’s powerful ability to cling to vertical surfaces is inspiring new types of adhesion. Exploring photosynthesis in leaves has led to the creation of transparent photocells that can absorb solar rays passing through a window. And a Japanese train picked up speed and reduced energy consumption after modifying the shape of its nose from the tip of a bullet to that of a kingfisher’s beak.

Last year, the Montana-based Biomimicry Institute, where Benyus is president of the board, took one more step to make biomimicry a standard design practice. It created a two-year, masters-level certificate program to train designers, engineers, biologists, businessmen and others to become “practicing biomimics.” Says Benyus, “Hopefully, at the end, they’ll walk out together and have an idea for a new product, or even a new company.”

What is a “practicing biomimic?” What will that person’s job look like in the real world?

A biomimic is somebody who wants to invent a new product or a new process or a new organizational strategy. In order to do this, one of the steps they take is to ask: How would nature do this? And, how would nature not do this? They find some design principles or blueprints or a recipe in nature. What they then design tends to be informed by nature’s advice, the advice of an organism or an eco-system, because nature has already done what it is they are trying to do.

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