Biomimicry Principles to help Businesses Thrive in Tough Times

April 21, 2013 Leave a comment

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Setting off over the Greensand Hills

Steps Towards Sustainability Walk – ‘Bluebells & Biomimicry’: April 13th

A fantastic mix of people turned up for the first 6heads Steps Towards Sustainability walk last weekend, from social entrepreneurs setting up businesses of their own to sustainability practitioners from huge global businesses.  We set out from Oxted with a short climb over the Greensand Hills, followed by some fine bluebell woods that, unfortunately, were carpeted in bluebells that were still a week or two away from blooming due to this year’s unseasonably cold spring.

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly our well-deserved lunch at The Royal Oak Inn, where Geraldine Brennan, shared some of the key insights from her research about what businesses can learn from nature.

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THREE LEVELS OF BIOMIMICRY

Geraldine began by outlining the rationale for why businesses would look to nature for inspiration and how they can profit from imitating natural form/function, natural processes and natural systems.

1. Many people will be familiar with examples of businesses successfully copying forms from nature, from George deMestral’s 1941 invention of velcro, based on his experience of removing burrs from his dog’s coat to competitive swimmers wearing suits that replicate the overlapping dermal dentricals of sharkskin to reduce turbulence and thus increase their speed.  A better understanding of why humpback whales have a series of irregular bumps along the leading edge of their flippers is being applied by a company, Whalepower, to improve the efficiency of wind turbines.

2. But more than merely directly copying forms from nature, many designers are now focusing on understanding the natural processes that explain why these natural forms evolved as they did.  The process of using a hydrophobic material with microbumps to create self-cleaning surfaces was originally inspired by the lotus flower’s ability to remain clean, but this anti-fouling process is evident in many species such as butterflies and whales.  Gaining a more holistic understanding of how this process works across multiple examples can help create an optimal design solution.

3. Increasingly the study of biomimicry has focused on the fundamental principles that underlie natural systems.  This more abstract understanding can have a much broader application than replicating a natural form or process.  Perhaps one of the best known applications of this is the industrial ecosystem created in Kalundborg in Denmark where an industrial cluster has been designed so that the outputs from one industry are used as the inputs for another.  With 3 million tonnes of material and energy exchanged annually the cost-savings have been estimated at $10m. a year.

THRIVING IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS

With so many examples in nature of life not just surviving, but thriving in extreme environments and under extremely harsh conditions, what are the lessons for businesses in the face of our current, turbulent economy?  Geraldine shared some principles suggested by Erin Leitch:

Create an affinity with the resources you need to attract: The Namib Desert beetle lives in one of the driest environments on earth, but uses a series of bumps on it’s shell with hydrophilic tips that condenses the scarce morning dew, which then flows down its back into its mouth.  How can your business do more to attract the resources that are currently limiting you?

Take advantage of your competitors’ down-times: Peatland perennials have evolved to flower at different times, so as to maximise the opportunity for each species to pollinate, given the scarcity of pollinating insects in peatland ecosystems.  Can your offering be differentiated by being available when your competitor’s isn’t?

Build resilience by collaborating to manage resource flows: In douglas-fir forests a below-ground, fungal, mycorhizzal network exchanges carbon between deciduous paper birch trees to regenerating douglas fir seedlings nearby.  When the birch trees are without leaves, the douglas-fir trees reciprocate by transferring carbon back again.  Is there an opportunity to manage stocks and flows of resources through the professional network of your business?

Leverage free energy on your doorstep: Dandelions raise a globe of seeds high above their roots with a disc of radiating threads which capture the wind, meaning it does not have to expend any energy to physically disperse its seeds over large distances.  Being locally attuned and responsive to the world adjacent to your organization can reveal new sources of abundance. Is there an initiative or momentum already underway in the market that you can leverage?

As well as these specific examples, consider the main principles that underpin thriving natural systems and consider how each of these could be applied to benefit your activities.  Geraldine also shared some really practical tools from the Biomicry Institute for using principles from biomicry to drive business innovation.

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After lunch, the second half of the walk was a test of our resilience as the dry morning had changed into a decidedly wet and windy afternoon – even the spring lambs were sheltering from the weather!  Well done to everyone who braved the rain and the mud of the end of the walk!  The next Steps Towards Sustainability walk is planned for the height of Summer – fingers crossed for some better weather then!

Filed under General, Nature and business Tagged with , , , ,

Steps Towards Sustainability Spring Walk – Bluebells and Biomimicry

March 26, 2013 Leave a comment

22591645Join 6heads for a day exploring the beautiful countryside a short train-ride from London on foot with like-minded sustainability practitioners. Enjoy some delicious local food at the lunchtime pub, while being inspired by a thought-provoking speaker. There’s one walk for each season, themed around a topical subject, with the first on Saturday April 13th.

The plan for the day is to meet at 9.10am at Cafe Ritazza (between Boots and Vodafone to the right of the main ticket office on the main concourse) in Victoria Station to catch a train to Oxted.  The walk route starts with a short climb over the Greensand Hills before entering Staffhurst Wood - a nature reserve, bluebell wood and site of special scientific interest managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust.  The lunchtime stop is The Royal Oak Inn, a wonderful country inn with some great food, much of it sourced locally.  While we’re waiting for our lunch we’re planning a short talk by Geraldine Brennan to inspire discussion around biomimicry and what businesses can learn from nature.

theroyaloakoxtedAfter lunch there the route continues with a gentle walk across the Low Weald – past some beautifully preserved farmhouses and crossing Lingfield Common (another nature reserve).  There’s an option for a stop at a local tearoom before returning to London from Lingfield station.  The total walking time should be 3 hours 40 minutes, but allowing plenty of time for lunch and breaks, we’d anticipate being back in Victoria for 5pm.

Places are very limited due to the capacity of the lunchtime pub, so we’re asking you to secure your place by pre-paying for your train ticket and lunch.  This allows us to get a half-price groupsave ticket and gives you a £15 voucher towards lunch.  The total cost you need to pre-pay is £25.  If there’s a sufficient interest and a waitlist of people who would like to join after the initial tickets have sold-out, we will release another 25 tickets for a later start-time to allow for a second lunch-sitting.

http://6heads-springwalk.eventbrite.co.uk/

Please dress warmly and bring waterproofs in case it rains.  You’ll need footwear that is comfortable and that can cope with puddles and mud.  Ideally hiking boots, but as this walk is mainly through fields and woodland, comfortable wellingtons or even runners should be okay as long as you don’t mind them getting a bit muddy.

Hope you can join us!

For any queries or if you want more info please contact James Payne on 07803857018 or at james.payne@6-heads.com

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Making Sense of Our Non-linear World

March 6, 2013 Leave a comment

How can we shift from being locked in simplistic, linear, industrial-era mindsets to an approach that is more suited to the ambiguity and complexity of today’s world? Last week 6-Heads was posed this question by the inspirational Alan Moore at the first of ourImage new series of ‘salon-style’ conversations with thinkers that are forging new ground in sustainability and breakthrough innovation.  Alan is the author of No Straight Lines: Making Sense of Our Non-linear World, in which he sets out both the problem of humanity having reached the edge of the adaptive range of our industrial society and six clear principles for how we can flourish in the new reality we face.

While some people may see the recent financial crisis as a distraction for governments and people from dealing with growing social inequality and accelerating environmental degradation, Alan argued that this systemic breakdown actually started to wake people up from the delusion of unlimited, linear, exponential growth.   He sees not just a material crisis, but also a psychological and spiritual crisis for humanity.  This is characterised by an individualistic, atomised and reductionist approach to life where the only measurement of value is monetary.  But instead of just complaining about the ills of society, Alan sees these crises as a design challenge.  In the same way that you wouldn’t try to run the latest laptop computer with an out-of-date operating system, we need a ‘system reboot’ and an ‘upgrade of the human O.S.’

Here are the principles that Alan sets out as being vital to driving this shift:

1. Acknowledge the ambiguities of an uncertain world; deal with them through systems thinking and creativity.

2. Adaptiveness is key – become literate in pattern recognition and be ready to respond to change.

3. Openness is resilience – resilient systems are not monocultures – embrace diversity.

4. Use the power of participatory cultures and tools – embed sociability into our thinking, design and everything we create.

5. The artistry of craftsmanship is needed – knowledge, skill, creativity and passion all at once.

6. Seek Epic Wins – transformational change is needed so have the vision, courage and conviction to create real breakthroughs.

ImageAfter the talk it was great to be able to debate and discuss  the issues raised. We suggested resources and ideas that might be useful in the Transformation Lab methodology that Alan is developing to help businesses deal with our non-linear world.  Much of the discussion centered on the need for new language and vocabulary to underpin a shift to a new paradigm; while we use the vocabulary of the industrial paradigm we end up stuck in old ways of thinking.  The concept of ‘Cyberspace’ didn’t exist until Sci-fi author William Gibson coined it.  If we can’t describe a new destination we can’t get there.

We also discussed the importance of finding engaging and clear ways to communicate complex issues.  My favourite recent example of a clever approach to doing this is economist Mike Konczal’s explanation of the failure of US monetary policy using GIFs – who knew that complex monetary policy could be so amusing, engaging and understandable?!?  This is exactly the kind of mentality needed to clearly and effectively communicate the complex challenges we face in our non-linear world.

Click here for a free Browserbook of No Straight Lines or purchase online from Amazon.

If you are interested in participating at our salons as a presenter looking for collaborative dialogue/answers or as an active participant, please contact Nicola at nicola.millson@6-heads.com.

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The Naked Business – from Fearful to Flawsome

June 23, 2012 2 Comments

When it comes to addressing sustainability, the incumbent businesses that make the most material, negative impacts are often the ones that resist or are slow to shift to more sustainable approaches.  Setting these large businesses on a more environmentally sound path could create a significant shift in momentum towards a more sustainable, flourishing world.  However, these businesses often face cynicism from stakeholders and customers and may be demonised for their historic or current contributions to fueling unsustainabilty – there is little incentive to change if genuine efforts to improve are met with cynicism and disbelief.

On a recent consultancy project with a global food-service company, I was struck by how, despite significant efforts to address key sustainability impacts, there was a reticence to communicate these initiatives.  Is this a problem?  Isn’t it more important to make real changes to supply chains and business models than to communicate them?

This question is at the crux of whether a business sees addressing sustainability as a hygiene factor that is part of a reactive, risk-management approach or as a core business value at the heart of competitive strategy.  I believe that to unlock true change at the pace required, it is imperative that businesses embrace sustainability as a key driver of marketplace advantage with their customers.  This requires communication.

Last week the UK premiere of ‘The Naked Brand’ took place in London – a really enjoyable documentary film by Jeff Rosenbloom who heads up the leading US communications agency Questus.  It explores how advances in digital technology are rapidly making businesses accountable to everyone.  With constant access to the truth about the products we use and the behaviour and ethics of the companies behind them, suddenly it isn’t enough for a brand to look good with some glossy advertising – the business actually has to be great.   The film makes the point that transparency either happens to you or it happens with you; a business has to choose one or the other.

“…transparency either happens to you or it happens with you…”

But transparency can be scary for a big corporation.  From corporate affairs to CSR to marketing departments, experienced professionals are accustomed to seeking to ’control the message’.  This is clearly futile in an always-on, highly connected digital world of customer reviews, social media and micro-blogging; the control of what gets said about your company or brand has decisively shifted from the company to the customer.

It’s time to stop trying to manipulate and control messaging and instead look for a more authentic engagement with customers around sustainability initiatives.  Stop trying to pretend that your business or brand is perfect in every way - be open and honest about acknowledging where you have more work to do and what your flaws and weaknesses are.  Trendwatching.com’s recent ‘Flawsome’ trend report shows how doing this makes your brand more human and real for customers; there is a shift from customers critiquing the issues that you are trying to hide to a more genuine engagement with the issues and a more collaborative conversation around what can be done to address them.

During the Q&A session after the film premiere, Jeff made the point that in reality brands and companies are more likely to become translucent than transparent; if full transparency is interpreted to mean communicating every tiny detail about everything that happens in a company, this would then result in such a glut of information that actually identifying important or relevant information would become almost impossible. Transparency isn’t about making every waking moment of your company public; instead it entails a shift in how you communicate about your business from glossy and superficial window-dressing to a more meaningful and genuine engagement with customers and critics.

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