BIOMIMICRY: Tool for Innovation at All Levels of Organization Th e global climate is changing at an unprecedented rate. As governmental regulations and social values react, businesses are also undergoing radical change to benefi t as proponents of sustainable development. In searching for clues on how to conduct business in a successful and socio-environmentally responsible way, we can look to nature as a guide. Ecosystems can be seen as economies that have been, until recently, extremely prosperous. Almost 4 billion years of research and development experience have left nature replete with examples of successful survival methods. Acknowledging innovation as a critical part of success in the business world, this paper introduces biomimicry as a framework for driving innovation for positive fi nancial, social and environmental change. Th e application of biomimicry for business is actually two undertakings: the fi rst is to learn various components of nature, such as the designs, systems, and processes of the natural world through the sciences of biology, ecology, psychology and others; the second is to identify how these components of nature contain solutions or innovations applicable to the organization. Th is paper will primarily explore how biomimicry can inform the management of small and medium sized businesses (SME), although the ideas can certainly be adapted to the management of nonprofi ts, larger fi rms, communities, and even one’s individual life.

© 2010 Strategic Sustainability ConsultingZai Kang Chang

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Contents

BACKGROUND ................................................................................1

THE NEW BUSINESS CLIMATE ...........................................................3

WHAT IS BIOMIMICRY? ...................................................................4

BIOMIMICRY: PERSPECTIVES FOR INNOVATION ..................................6

BIOMIMICRY: METAPHOR GENERATION FOR BUSINESS .......................8

FIRST PRINCIPLES ............................................................................10Basic Physical Laws ............................................................................... 10

Basic Ecological Principles .................................................................... 11

BUSINESS APPLICATIONS OF BIOMIMICRY .........................................14Natural Concept to Product Concept/Design: Interface, Inc ................ 14

Physical, Natural Design to Product Design: Shape Opti mizati on......... 15

Natural Principle to Business Principle: Industrial Ecology ................... 16

Species Behavior to Management Principles: Collecti ve Decision Making .................................................................................................. 16

Ecosystem Principle to Business Principle: Creati ng a Community ...... 17

Natural Community Principle to Management Principle: Reducing Intra-Staff Competi ti on ......................................................... 18

Natural Principle to Management Strategy: Organizati on as an Organism .............................................................................................. 19

Species Behavior to Management Strategy: Swarm Intelligence ......... 22

SUMMARY AND NOTES ON THE EXAMPLES ........................................24

LEARNING TO USE BIOMIMICRY .......................................................251. A Proacti ve Strategy is Prompted by Internal Desires within the Company............................................................................................... 25

2. This Means Substanti al Change ........................................................ 25

3. Leadership ........................................................................................ 26

4. Assess Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportuniti es, And Threats ............ 26

5. Vision for How Biomimicry Can Add Value to Your Business ............ 27

6. Becoming a Learning Organizati on ................................................... 28

7. Common Knowledge of Ecology and First Principles ........................ 29

8. Feedback........................................................................................... 29

CONCLUSION ..................................................................................30

REFERENCES ...................................................................................32

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Currently, economies and business operate without accurately valuing many of Earth’s complementary services. Th ese services, including recycling of wastes, oxygen production, provision of fresh water, maintaining soil quality and countless others, are severely undervalued or, in some cases, not valued at all. As populations grow and the resource appetite of wealthy nations increases, we are seeing global signs of environmental collapse and degradation. It has become well understood that the processes we perform to maintain our economies are interfering with the natural world’s ability to provide these services we utterly depend upon for survival. All other species have, for hundreds of millions of years, thrived on this planet without intergovernmental agreements and protocols and have served primarily to increase and diversify the versions of life on this planet. What can our society learn from natural society about existing and thriving in the long term?

Th e economy is a key driver of the direction of society, therefore, those concerned with the long term well-being of society desire a sustainable economy, or one “that preserves and enhances a well-functioning ecosystem; provides humans with the products and services necessary for a good and dignifi ed life; provides opportunities for fulfi lling work and self-realization; achieves and maintains economic justice; and utilizes resources at a sustainable rate that does not deplete future generations.”1 Th ese goals cannot be met through

1 Milbrath, Lester W. 1989. Envisioning a sustainable society: Learning our way out. New York: SUNY.

the industrial processes we currently undertake. Th e basic fl ow of our industrial processes has not signifi cantly changed since the industrial revolution—it is primarily a linear one, extracting resources, producing products, and then relieving unused wastes into the environment. Th e design of future operations must evolve to be in line with natural systems: we should not emit more carbon than plants can absorb, we should not take more fi sh than can reproduce and we should not dump more materials than the local ecosystem can metabolize. Society must not degrade the very natural systems it depends upon to survive.

CEOs of many large companies are getting more attention from the media as they increasingly fold sustainability into their core business practices. Th is is in order as positive reports show CEOs are expecting to see increased customer retention and attraction and a drop in operating costs.2 But if half of the nonfarm gross domestic product (GDP) is produced through fi rms that have fewer than 20 employees3, it would be wrong to say sustainable business development is alive and well in businesses. Small businesses, defi ned by the U.S. Small Business Association, are independent fi rms with less than 500 employees. Th ey account for half of the electricity and natural gas consumed by

2 “2009 Greening of Corporate America.” McGraw-Hill Construction. Web 20 Oct 2009. http://construction.com 3 Th e Small Business Economy for Data Year 2005. Rep. Th e Small Business Administration, Dec. 2006. Web. 06 Oct. 2009. <http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/sb_econ2006.pdf>.

Background

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the commercial and industrial sectors.4 Th e crucial advancement of sustainability in small business will be hard-fought and to the immense benefi t of local communities, economies, and the global environment. Regardless of the size of the business, the impending large-scale environmental changes will certainly change the entire business landscape. Th e emerging problems in the business world and society at large call for a new paradigm, one where organizations “learn in harmony with the dynamics of their milieu in order to co-evolve and create value.”5

4 http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2008/02/18/big-impact-greening-small-businesses?page=0%2C05 Laszlo, Kathia C. (2003) p. 605

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It is easy to see why big business has been blamed for much of our present day environmental destruction and climate change. Th is could explain why, in more recent times, companies such as Walmart, a $400 billion dollar company, have been on the forefront of championing environmental and social issues. Proactive companies are realizing the principles that have brought about the current state of environmental degradation are not relevant anymore and create less advantage. Th e strategic self-interest of businesses lies in being aware of facts, trends, opportunities, and potential pitfalls that aff ect future profi ts. Environmental degradation, untenable resource extraction, and climate change are all facts of our new and emerging reality that point to the need for large-scale change. Major economic and social variables are changing and businesses cannot be sheltered from the eff ect these forces will have on our economy. Th ose that want to survive will have to make key management decisions to adapt to the new business climate: one that is more conscious of our intricate connections with each other and with our planet. Andrew Winston, best-selling author on green business, writes in Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top: “…Survival and sustainability are truly not at odds. In fact, sustainability is at the very core of survival. No company, or society, can last unless it cares for all of its resources and capital—human, fi nancial, and environmental.”6

6 Winston, Andrew Green Recovery Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top Harvard Business Press. p. 2.

Many proactive companies are merging their bottom line with the common good, and are moving towards business practices that are more profi table and more responsible. Many larger companies are instituting “green” policies, creating offi ces of sustainability, or hiring consulting fi rms to make their steps towards sustainability. Surely, not all organizations can aff ord to take these measures, but all must incorporate the new ideas of sustainable development in some way to survive in the changing business climate.

Currently, fi guring out how to adapt to and incorporate these changes into a specifi c organization presents challenges for smaller organizations because there are fewer relevant models of change. Th en how do smaller organizations innovate towards sustainable development, without hiring large consulting fi rms, creating a sustainability plan or instituting a new wing of the company? As we now begin to keenly ask how we should design our products, businesses, and industries in a sustainable manner, we only have to look to nature for inspiration and this is the realm of biomimicry.

The New Business Climate

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What is Biomimicry?

Biomimicry comes from the Greek bios, meaning life and mimesis, means imitation. Th e idea of drawing inspiration from nature most likely dates back as far as man began imitating things around him. A more recognizable form may be found in Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex on the Flight of Birds in which da Vinci examined the fl ight of birds and then proposed mechanical constructions to replicate the fl ight behavior. More recently, the term has been popularized by biological sciences writer and avatar for biomimicry, Janine Benyus. She gives a three-part defi nition of the word, but only the fi rst will be included here as it is the most applicable:

“Nature as model. Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature’s models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems…”7

Even within industries, diff erent companies face similar problems. Evaluating the similarity between the problems of two companies will reveal if a solution to one is a solution to the other. Biomimicry expands the comparison base to include the patterns of nature as well. Seen as an exercise in pattern matching, companies must match the situation causing the ineffi ciency with a similar situation found in nature. Of course in nature, there are only solutions to the ineffi ciencies, because the “problems” are extinct. Bad adaptations or processes are weeded out by natural selection and therefore do not exist. Th is is a profound concept, apt for a time when information in the life sciences is becoming increasingly available. Karim Lakhani, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who studies 7 Benyus, Janine. (1997) p. i

innovation says, “You can’t imagine that someone else may have a diff erent perspective. But problems that are diffi cult in one domain may be trivial to solve from the perspective of a diff erent domain.”8

Hundreds, if not thousands of innovations have come about studying the habits of social creatures, change in plant species of forests, beaks of birds, skin of sharks, leaves of plants, and other natural treasures.

Velcro was inspired by the hooking mechanisms found on seeds. Source: conservationreport.com/2008/12/

8 http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/140/made-to-stick-stop-solving-your-problems.html

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Th e principle behind self-healing plastics were inspired by our own body’s ability to heal from wounds. Source: keone @ Flickr

Termite mounds must be kept at 86 degrees F, they manage to do this within one degree while the outside air fl uctuates from 34 degrees F at night to 104 degrees F in the midst of a scorching day. Architects have studied termite mounds to inform the design of energy effi cient buildings. Th e Eastgate building uses 10% of the energy of conventional buildings. Source: http://www.treehugger.com/fi les/2006/08/biomimetic_buil_1.php

Solar cells are being developed that take notes from photosynthesizing plants. Source: www.greenwavelength.com/tag/biomimicry/

All around the world, the designs of nature are modeled as physical design solutions to various engineering problems. Th e metaphor of biomimicry, in this way, can be taken quite literally. Th at is to say, a designer can simply adapt the physical design characteristics of an owl’s wings and employ them in his own design for a wind turbine. Because every piece in nature is a process that is conducive to life and every species has the refi ned designs of billions of years’ worth of evolution, there are not only a large number of ‘solutions’ from which we can learn, but also a wide variety of types of solutions we can learn. Where the previous examples have adapted the physical design specifi cations of nature, other metaphors can be made between nature’s processes and principles and those of our own.

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Biomimicry: Perspecti ves for Innovati on

A well-observed characteristic of the natural world is its effi cient use and re-use of existing resources. For example, leaves falling from trees make homes for smaller insects and animals and eventually degrade into the soil to provide resources for future plant and microbial growth. Eco-effi ciency and complete re-use are basic tenets of nature and should be models for our own society. Replicating this idea on a smaller scale, an organization does not necessarily require outside resources to innovate towards sustainability and can rely on its own human capital to generate these types of ideas.

Designing for better innovation, leadership, increased adaptability, relationships and communications are all areas crucial to successful business growth and are all areas in which nature has a wealth of experience. With further study and some creativity, the natural world can be a source of inspiration for an unlimited number of ideas. Why nature? Primarily because every system found in nature is conducive to life.

Every species that exists today has gone through an exhaustive Darwinian refi nement by nature to be an effi cient, eff ective, and often beautiful example of a way to survive. At the species level, and at the broader, ecosystem level, there are repeated principles that have proven to be conducive to persistence.

Biomimicry is a fi eld of study undertaken to look at the designs, processes, cycles, and mechanisms by which other species have thrived and then adapts these principles to our own products, processes and even management strategies. Indeed, nature has overcome serious design problems and accomplished

remarkable engineering feats9 while managing to look great in the process. Learning how to capitalize on the ideas found in nature is an invaluable tool. In the information age of the 21st century, the idea and the ability to profi t from it are priceless resources.

Th rough biomimicry, organizations can avail themselves to a new type of natural resource, one completely renewable and free of emissions or negative environmental eff ects—that resource is the idea. Catherine Bragdon, of Biomimicry Guild’s business development department points out, “(With biomimicry), if you look at a tree, you’re not cutting it down to build a building. You’re looking at how it can move its food, water, and energy through seven stories without any motors or mechanics, how you can take that knowledge and use it to make a better building.”10 By adapting nature’s time-tested and conducive-to-life principles we can create lean, eff ective, healthy, and effi cient business and industrial systems.

When we look for the principles and strategies of the natural processes that permeate our world, Janine Benyus, in her seminal work Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature highlights the decades of work of ecologists:11

9 Bhushan, Bharat. “Biomimietics: lessons from nature—an overview.” Philosophical Transactions of Th e Royal Society 367 (2009): 1445-1486. 10 Schoonmaker, Daniel. “Biomimicry: A Natural Progression.” Grand Rapids Business Journal 23.15 (2005): 1. Newsfactor. Web. 30 Oct. 2009. http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11000004JX7M. 11 Benyus, Janine M. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Print. P. 7

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Nature runs on sunlight.Nature uses only the energy it needs.Nature fi ts form to function.Nature recycles everything.Nature rewards cooperation.Nature banks on diversity.Nature demands local expertise.Nature curbs excesses from within.Nature taps the power of limits.

Th ese overarching observations on a variety of scales from the family of fi eld mice to the Amazonian rain forest are key principles nature continually employs to maintain her elegance and balance. Biomimicry for business is then, not a goal, but a means to remain continually adaptive in the ever-changing business climate—a source for new conceptual and practical business applications.

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Biomimicry: Metaphor Generati on for Businesses

Metaphors have a profound infl uence on the business world. Th e state of war is a metaphor used by many corporate strategists and business writers to explain the importance of strategy and seriousness of competition. Th is metaphor typically evokes a characterization of war devoid of a moral dimension.12 Th e way a person thinks about business shapes the behavior and attitudes he or she has towards fellow employees, competitors, customers, and the surrounding community.13 Similarly, the way a CEO perceives the role of the company then determines the mission, strategies, structures, and processes used to fulfi ll that perception. Unethical business decisions can result in disastrous results for the company, and even the economy, as we have seen in the case of Countrywide Financial’s role in the 2008 economic downturn. To the contrary, there exist metaphors for businesses to be part of a cooperative community and develop relationships that are not about undercutting and profi t maximizing. Employing the right metaphors for the role of business at the outset is a critical task of the leader.

Businesses also employ metaphors to inspire or motivate in daily operations. Since the economic downturn in 2008, there have been numerous metaphors linking the company to a runner in the race’s most diffi cult parts. Th ey note, it is often in the most diffi cult parts of a race in which the leaders change positions. While this particular metaphor

12 MacFarlane, Bruce. “Re-Evaluating the Realist Conception of War as a Business Metaphor.” Teaching Business Ethics 3 (1999): 27-35. Web. 11 Nov. 2009.13 Solomon, Robert C. 1999. A better way to think about business: How personal integrity leads to corporate success. New York: Oxford University Press

helps the reader understand the circumstances of businesses in the downturn through the illustration of a marathon, biomimicry introduces a set of illustrations that are based in the wisdom of nature and natural principles. It is a way to highlight nature’s problem solving ability for the purpose of adapting its solutions, either metaphorically or physically to analogous human problems. Like many of the examples in this paper suggest, nature is extremely effi cient in the use of resources. Th is is because animals must hunt and risk their lives to obtain food. Businesses can adopt this principle of extreme resource effi ciency as a basis for reducing wasted resources that were once thought of as fi xed, necessary costs or never thought about at all. Examples include: paying unnecessary disposal fees, high utility costs, stalled inventory, overproduction, unnecessary transportation, and over-processing.

However, drawing inspiration for more abstract business applications will require an understanding of the less tangible processes of nature and natural principles that are not immediately visible. To get a sense of how an environmentally restorative system operates, Janine Benyus uses the illustration of a Type 3 mature ecosystem, something like a large mature forest or established prairie. In this type of ecosystem many of the ecological principles mentioned below are in full swing: nutrients are being cycled over and over, all niches are fi lled (a variety of species make good use of the nutrients in the system), many cooperative and complex relations are thriving, the system continues to create more and more niches, and the system itself enhances its location rather than

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depletes it.14 Careful observation and study of a fl ourishing ecosystem fi lled with plants and animals also shows that it is fuelled completely by natural sunlight and does not intake more resources than it requires. Th e rest of nature has found ways to exist sustainably, if our human societies, economies, and businesses mimic the underlying designs and processes of nature we will be many steps closer towards sustainable development as our non-human counterparts have found it.

By understanding nature’s principles, behaviors, and processes, leaders can draw illustrations, metaphors, and technical examples into the business world. Biomimicry introduces metaphors of interdependence and community that are echoes of conscious capitalism and corporate social responsibility.

Th e inspirational knowledge within nature is being learned and made available on a large scale through ecologists, animal biologists, and many others in the life sciences. Learning the scientifi c “fi rst principles” of these ideas in nature will serve to lay a foundation from which management can build the biomimicry perspective. With a fi rm understanding of nature’s inner workings, managers or others will avail themselves to the vast inventory of successful strategies contained in the natural world. Further direction and discernment will choose an appropriate idea to benefi t the organization.

14 Gold, Jordan. “Bio-Capitalism a natural example.” Corporate Knights Forestry Issue (2005): 42-43

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First Principles

Biomimicry as a discipline can be broken into two processes: learning from nature and applying what was learned. For an organization to benefi t from the biomimicry perspective, it is essential to gain a fundamental understanding of ecology and basic scientifi c principles. Indeed, as the managerial applications of biomimicry will vary widely, the method for developing the biomimicry perspective will not. Much attention should be paid to the following paragraphs, for these fi rst principles govern life as we know it in the natural world and form the essential foundation necessary to comprehend how the world is designed and operates. With a fi rm understanding of natural systems, one is not limited in the number of associations that can be made between a successful natural solution and a successful business solution.

BASIC PHYSICAL LAWSMATTER AND ENERGY CANNOT BE CREATED OR DESTROYED

All known forms of energy, on earth and in the universe, exist in various forms including chemical, heat, motion, light, and others. Energy of these various forms is constantly changing from one to the other. An example of this is when fi rewood is being burned: the energy stored in the wood (from years of gaining energy from sunlight) undergoes combustion and releases that energy in the form of heat. During the changing from one form to another, the First Law of Th ermodynamics states energy is neither created nor destroyed during these transformations. For our example, this means all the years of sunlight that went into the wood transformed completely into other forms of energy, primarily, heat.

Matter is similarly “conserved” during these transformations because the number of atoms before the transformation (in the fi rewood) is the same as the number of atoms that remained after the reaction (in the ash and smoke). Every material thing we create can be thought of as a recombination of atoms and molecules that have been on Earth for billions of years. Th is means the material pollution of our human activities also stay around with us, an idea that brings us to the next point.

THE EARTH IS A SYSTEM CLOSED TO MATTER AND OPEN TO ENERGY

To understand this second principle, think of a fossil fuel, such as coal or oil. We know the carbon atoms in fossil fuels are primarily from the carbon atoms of decomposed bodies of prehistoric organic life forms. By burning these fuels the carbon atoms again redistribute, but in the form of carbon dioxide, a pollutant and greenhouse gas. Unhealthy buildups of chemicals results in pollution. Currently, the climate change crisis is due to the surplus of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Although plants require carbon dioxide to live, the concentration is too great to be useful. We cannot escape this principle, all human activities resulting in material pollutant we reside along with us on Earth, in one form or another.

Fossil fuels are combusted primarily for the resulting heat energy. But fossil fuels do not inherently contain energy; they are simply a form in which energy is stored. Th e energy in fossil fuels was laid down in prehistoric times from the bodies of plants, animals, insects, etc. Plants stored the energy from

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the sun, herbivores ate those plants to gain a portion of their stored energy, and carnivores ate herbivores to gain a portion of their stored energy. In fact, all the energy found in fossil fuels can be linked to energy from the sun from hundreds of millions of years ago. As the fossil fuels are burned, they convert that energy into heat. Some of the heat is captured and ordered into a useful form of energy, but much of it dissipates into the environment.

Energy from the sun is absorbed by living things such as plants and nonliving things such as rocks. In the case of nonliving things the heat is almost immediately radiated back out in the form of heat (think of a parking lot on a summer day). In the case of a plant, the energy is stored in the form of sugars and is consumed by a herbivore. During the metabolic process of the herbivore, heat is released out of the system. Source http://sciencebitz.com/?page_id=12

To summarize, Earth is a system closed to matter because the total volume of material on Earth stays constant and it is open to energy because energy comes from the sun and is eventually lost as heat.

ENERGY TENDS TO SPREAD OUT OR DISSIPATE

Th e second law of thermodynamics can be summed up by the concept of entropy: energy in a closed system tends to be less available to do work. Whereas energy in the form of electricity is more ordered and

useful to do work, heat is more disordered and is harder to collect to perform work. Any combustion of a fossil fuel demonstrates both of these facts. Stored energy in the fuel combusts to release heat energy while the carbon molecules that once made up the fuel disperse as carbon dioxide. Fossil fuel technologies capture only a fraction of this heat to make electricity; the remaining heat is released to the environment and can be seen as wasted energy.

BASIC ECOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

Ecology is the study of the interaction of organisms with their environments. Th e fi eld of study includes the study of species population growth, competition/relationships between species, feeding relationships, and interactions with the physical environment on a variety of scales. Although the fi eld of study is extremely wide-ranging the following paragraphs will present several ecological principles thought to be relevant to the scope of this paper. Readers are encouraged to envision business management equivalents to these concepts. Example analogues include the company as an organism, genes as ideas, and ecosystems as economies.

INTERCONNECTED, BALANCED FEEDBACK SYSTEMS

Ecosystems are a complex web of relationships involving a series of fl ows of matter and energy. Basically, everything is connected to everything. For example, if one were to take all butterfl ies out of an ecosystem, there would be less pollination occurring, which would result in less plant growth, which in turn would aff ect the diversity of herbivores attracted to those plants, etc. Inherent in this set of relationships is the idea of feedback. Since every bit of matter and energy is used so effi ciently, when something is off or missing, some species in

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the ecosystem will notice. With a decreased hare population there will be less food available for the lynx population. Th e lynx population then decreases proportionally due to this constraint, thereby scaling back the resources required to fulfi ll the needs of the population. Diff erent conditions can make the feedback less graceful. Suppose there is a population of lynx and hare on an island. Th e lynx would continue to eat, grow, reproduce, produce waste, die, and so on at their hearts content. However, their rate of growth is larger than the rate of growth of their primary resource (the hare), eventually there will be a large pack of lynx hunting for a small number of hare (high intraspecifi c competition). Inevitably, there is a crash in the lynx population and the hare would slowly increase in number.

Th e lynx population is reacting to, or receiving information from, the population of the hare. Source ccl.northwestern.edu/papers/bio/long/

RESOURCE CYCLING

An atom in a fruit is consumed by a herbivore roaming through the forest. Th e atom transfers to some carnivore as it consumes the herbivore. Soon enough the carnivore dies and is decomposing in a fi eld where the atom and parts of the animal become nutrients in the soil for plants. Th is is an example of nutrient cycling, but cycling occurs in nature on many scales. In the water cycle, a molecule of water will transpire from the leaf of a tree into the air. As

moisture builds in the sky, clouds form, resulting in rainfall. Rain is absorbed into the soil and subsequently absorbed by the tree for the process to continue. Notice that in cycling, all materials are re-used. No processing of a material results in something that is unusable for the next step in the process.

All materials are converted into forms that are usable for other life-forms. Source: http://www.ljcreate.com/products/product.asp?id=589&program=158&curr=1

Th e niche, a term adapted from ecology, is frequently used in modern business language. A species niche can be seen as the habitat and resource consumption needs of the species. Species inhabiting the same niche will result in either extinction of one species, resource partitioning—one species will be driven toward a slightly diff erent niche thereby avoiding competition, or a similar species may diff erentiate as they co-evolve.

Competition can be broken down into intraspecifi c competition and interspecifi c competition. Intraspecifi c competition may be intense because it is between individuals of the same species, thus within the same niche. Interspecifi c competition occurs between diff erent species confl icting over a shared resource.

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Mutualism is a type of symbiosis relationship, or living together between symbiont and host. Th e relationship, involving two or more diff erent species, results in benefi ts for all parties. Th e Clownfi sh scares away predators of its host, the sea anemone, while the fi sh’s waste is thought to be absorbed as nutrients. Th e sea anemone provides protection for the fi sh by using its stinging capsules to capture prey.15

Clownfi sh swim unaff ected by the stinging capsules of the anemone. Source: www.graphicshunt.com

Adaptation. Any heritable trait (capable of being transmitted to the next generation), be it behavioral, morphological or physiological, which aids survival or reproduction in a particular environment is an adaptation to that environment.16 Th ose best adapted to the environment (at the time) are the individuals that will survive, reproduce and pass down the genetic traits that have enabled them to survive. Th is process is called natural selection, or “survival of the fi ttest”.

15 “Relationship protects from predators: clownfi sh, anemones.” Ask Nature. Th e Biomimicry Institute. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <www.asknature.org>.16 Mackenzie, Aulay, Andy S. Ball, and Sonia R. Virdee. Ecology. 2nd ed. Oxford: BIOS Scientifi c Ltd, 2001. Print.

Genetic variation. Genes are made up of DNA molecules, which are the coded information sets for building and operating the organism. Th e small diff erentiations between the gene sets of two individuals within a species, along with environmental factors produce the physical and behavioral diff erences one can observe. Th e gene pool is the total set of genes present in a population. If a gene produces a physical or behavioral diff erence resulting in a survival advantage, the population’s gene pool will, over time, begin to include more individuals with that gene. Genetically diverse species, or those with larger genetic variation are better suited to adapt to changes in the environment.

Community and succession. A community is a collection of species that occur in the same place and time. It is a subset of an ecosystem. As communities proceed through succession the species composition changes. Th e complexity of communities increases as succession progresses. Th e greatest diversity and amount of nutrient cycling occurs during the mid-successional period of a community.

Example of typical stages of ecosystem succession. Source: www.tutorvista.com/.../lithosere.php

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Business Applicati ons of Biomimicry

A quick search of the term “biomimicry” will be replete with thousands of inspiring and cutting-edge examples primarily in the areas of product design and materials engineering, but also include structural optimization, chemical engineering, and desalination techniques. All of the biomimetic inventions are examples of the power of our human minds and their ability to learn and adapt. By learning and adapting what is already successful, we can quickly gain an advantage that took eons to evolve naturally.

It is easy to see the vast potential for biomimicry as a strategy to solve tactile, engineering-based problems, but how far does this analogy of “nature as designer” go? Does the analogy have solutions to our social or more seemingly distinctly human activities such as business management or product life cycles? Th e examples will be presented with labels describing the link between nature and business. For example, the fi rst case study is labeled, “Natural concept to product concept/design,” this classifi es the type of relationship between the natural phenomenon and the business application: a concept in nature inspired the design and concept of a product.

Th e ecological metaphors will be applied liberally. As the context and emphasis of the perspective changes; the scope of the metaphor will adapt to better illustrate the new perspective. Th e metaphor for the organization as a organism in the food web may enhance the perspective of the organization as it relates with other organizations in its business environment while viewing the organization as a collection of individuals will be conducive to exploring the intra-company relationships. Being

able to use the biomimicry metaphor on a variety of scales and contexts will be crucial in developing associations and solutions for the organization’s specifi c desires.

NATURAL CONCEPT TO PRODUCT CONCEPT/DESIGN: INTERFACE, INC.

Ray Anderson, Chairman of Interface, Inc., gathered his design staff to go out into the forest one day. Th e intention was to immerse his designers in nature so they might come back inspired with a new design. Interface produces modular fl oor coverings, or carpets. Th is exercise is not the whim of a boutique carpet producer but of the world’s largest maker of modular carpets, a company valued at $1.3 billion. What they found that day was this:”Th ey came to realize that no two things are alike—no two sticks, no two stones, no two leaves,” said Interface, Inc. Chairman Ray Anderson. “It’s total chaos, yet there’s a pleasant orderliness in the chaos.”

Th is realization of the concept of chaos within order—an idea that permeates nature—gave rise to a line of carpet tiles, named Entropy. Th e dye on the pieces of carpet was randomly placed to mimic the chaos found in nature. Th is let the pieces be installed in any direction while still maintaining the desired overall look. By doing this, Interface also greatly reduced installation time and production waste as compared to more traditional tiles. Not only did it cut down on Interface’s operating costs, the design of the tiles hid any replaced tiles among the older ones—this meant longer life for the fl ooring and less inventory for suppliers. Entropy became the company’s fastest bestseller, ever.

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Th e design of the carpet tiles allows for random placement and easy re-placement. Source: www.designboom.com/contemporary/biomimicry.html

Th is type of mimicry has taken a set of observations about a natural setting, taken one cognizant step further to be characterized as, “total chaos, yet there’s a pleasant orderliness in the chaos”. Th is summation of the set of observations then became the conceptual inspiration for a line of products. No precise measurements or testing were done to determine the extent of disorder among the sticks and stones. Th e idea of disorder was associated with carpet design, which allowed Interface to use mergeable dye lots and create individually unique tiles that install non-directionally. Th e front-end improvement in product design resulted in reduced wastes and costs for Interface.

PHYSICAL, NATURAL DESIGN TO PRODUCT DESIGN: SHAPE OPTIMIZATION

During the construction of a building, after the foundation has been set, a frame is constructed. Th e purpose of the frame is to give structure and carry and distribute the load of the building. Similarly, many machines rely on their designed structures

to maintain under fatigue load. If we are to use less material resources but maintain quality of structure, we can look to nature that has designed structures that adapt their shape to optimize the use of materials.17 Scientists have specifi cally looked at trees and bones to study how they grow and adapt to weight loads, both static and dynamic. Noticing that trees maximize strength and minimize material by growing material where it is needed, science has developed stronger and lighter designs for structures. Designers at DaimlerChrysler developed a concept car using these principles of shape optimization to make a lighter automobile with increased fuel effi ciency.

Th e structure of the car optimizes strength and minimizes material use resulting in a 30 percent lighter automobile. Source: http://emergentarchitecture.com/about.php?id=1

Th e shape is mimicked from the boxfi sh and is designed to reduce drag. http://www.eartheasy.com/blog/2009/06/biomimicry-why-the-world-is-full-of-intelligent-design/

17 Chen, J. L., and W. C. Tsai. “Shape Optimization by Using Simulated Biological Growth Approaches.” American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 31.11 (1993): 2143. Web.

16

Th is type of biomimicry has been the treasure trove of engineering and designers, that is, imitating or employing the physical design specifi cations of a natural structure or behavior. Th ese types of mimicry can be classifi ed as physical, natural design to product design.

NATURAL PRINCIPLE TO BUSINESS PRINCIPLE: INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY

Resource cycling is wonderfully displayed in an industrial park in Kalundborg, Denmark. Six companies: DONG ENERGY Asnæs Power Station, the plasterboard factory Gyproc A/S, the pharmaceutical plant Novo Nordisk A/S, the enzyme producer Novozymes A/S, the oil refi nery Statoil-Hydro A/S, the recycling company RGS 90 A/S, as well as the waste company Kara/Noveren I/S and Kalundborg Municipality have set up operations in close proximity with the intention of recycling each other’s by-products, formerly known as “wastes”. As can be seen in the fi gure below, for example, the power station’s waste heat is being sent to warm the fi sh in the fi sh farm while the residual steam is being piped to Novo Nordisk.

A diagram of the industrial ecosystem of Kalundborg adapted from http://en.symbiosis.dk/industrial-symbiosis.aspx

Th e residual products of the companies in the

system, which would normally be considered as waste and a liability, have now become a valued asset. Whereas in a more traditional industrial system, one would see byproducts such as steam, heat, and fl yash being passed on to the environment and becoming a liability. Eff ectively, the entire system was designed specifi cally to have each company fi ll a niche in the ecosystem. Existing as a community to share resources exhibits a lower impact than an individual company that would obtain its resources “from scratch” and results in improved fi nancial performance. A fi xed amount of resources is being partitioned in an effi cient manner, while relationships with other companies and the community fosters a mutually supportive environment for all involved.

Th is concept of industrial ecology is perhaps the most prominent example of a biomimetic process. It is being promoted worldwide by Th e Journal of Industrial Ecology and networks like Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI).

SPECIES BEHAVIOR TO MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES: COLLECTIVE DECISION MAKING

Collective decisions made by social animals are increasingly being recognized as very important to their success. Scientists are studying the communication behavior of bees because they must work and thrive amongst thousands of other bees of the colony. One of the decisions bees must make as their colonies expand is that of choosing a promising new hive location. Th e decision process is surprisingly successful in choosing a suitable location. Th e swarm blocks what sociologists call “groupthink”—an obstacle to good decision making

17

that occurs when people copy one another. An example of groupthink is when politicians vote blindly along party lines, or when investors get swept up into a buying craze without good reason. Th e swarm is able to do this by fi rst sending out scouts to fi nd suitable homes, which then return to “waggle dance” the whereabouts and quality of the site.

Th e bees use the waggle dance among other dances and signals to communicate a variety of messages. Source: blc.arizona.edu/.../TuanBees/TuanBees.html

Th e key then is the “interplay of bees”, the interdependence in communicating the whereabouts of the best site and their independence in confi rming this information”.18 Simply put, the bees must present their case and the other bees must see for themselves, come back and waggle dance in agreement. In making decisions collectively,

• Th e idea presenter must have an opportunity to communicate the proposition accurately and eff ectively.

• Stakeholders must then vet the idea individually.

18 “Decisions, decisions.” Th e Economist 390.8618 (2009): 89-90. Web. 30 Oct. 2009. p. 89.

• If the stakeholders agree, they are to actively support the idea.

ECOSYSTEM PRINCIPLE TO BUSINESS PRINCIPLE: CREATING A COMMUNITY

A fundamental idea in ecology is the cycling of matter. Plants are eaten by herbivores, which are eaten by carnivores, which die and become sustenance for opportunistic feeders and decomposers. Matter in all these stages, changes form and has value to the organisms of the succeeding class. Companies, like organisms in food webs, are part of an analogous ecology. “It’s a jungle out there” is a commonly used metaphor for the business environment. “Survival of the fi ttest” is also used to describe the kill or be killed nature of business. However, these metaphors overemphasize the competitive aspects of business while ignoring the critical role of cooperation.19 Each company plays a diff erent role in the web, and as in the previous example, are beginning to see that the waste they produce can have value for other companies. Th is powerful concept allows companies to turn around the cost of waste removal to create sale profi ts while allowing another company to reuse their “waste” material. However, many companies do not have the opportunity to design an ecosystem as happened in Kalundborg. In most cases, similar waste-to-profi t relationship opportunities exist, but they will need to be identifi ed and matched up to create an ad hoc ecosystem.

Th e mission of the Chicago Waste to Profi t Network is to encourage transactions between byproduct sellers and byproduct buyers. Although the companies do not necessarily form a community

19 Laszlo, Kathia C. “THE EVOLUTION OF BUSINESS: Learning, Innovation, And Sustainability in the Twenty-fi rst Century.” World Futures 59 (2003): 605-14. Web.

18

in proximity they are linked through the symbiotic relationship of exchange.

A success story of this ad hoc ecosystem comes from a bakery in Chicago. Waste grease was a byproduct of the operations at Cloverhill bakery and a liability. Th rough the Chicago Waste to Profi t Network, the bakery now sells the grease to an oil processor who processes it into agricultural grade fuels, which in turn is sold to local farmers. By taking the time to identify a consumer of one of its end products, the bakery has created revenue from selling 2,000 tons of oil while creating cost savings in disposal and hauling fees.

Th e establishment of the concept of “waste to profi t” can become a great force to drive companies to design their products and processes in a way that involves less waste, that is to say, fewer end products that are not valued by society. By shaping our processes to be more “closed loop”, rather than linear, the organisms in our industrial ecology begin to gain some of the material and energy effi ciencies modeled in our natural ecology. Creating a market for a company’s wastes can be seen as an exercise in networking, or forming relationships with other companies whose resources are your unwanted outputs.

Th is exercise may come as an unfamiliar challenge because the idea is to not look laterally at competing, peer companies but up and over to a completely diff erent “species” of company whose treasure is your trash, or vice versa. Being nested in a complex business community such as the Chicago Waste to Profi t Network will increase your chances of locating a company to form this type of mutually benefi cial relationship. First, do a materials audit identify all the infl ows and outfl ows of your business to assess which liabilities can become assets.

NATURAL COMMUNITY PRINCIPLE TO MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLE: REDUCING INTRA-STAFF COMPETITION

However specialized each role in the organization may be, at some level there must be communication and interaction among the members of the organization. Employees of organizations with greater interdisciplinary group work or less rigid boundaries must allocate time to make these interactions constructive. Because the number of hours employees would like to spend at work is limited, available time interacting with others becomes a limited resource. In other words, there is a limit to the amount of time available for working with the group because of the need to preserve time to complete individual obligations. Employees compete for the time of other employees and for their own time as well. As individuals, it may be diffi cult or time consuming to institute a balance of time devoted to the group and time devoted to one’s own work, but not doing so can make employees feel they are not in control of their time and less productive. Managers can institute simple changes in work practices to reduce the competition for employees’ time. Professors of management, Lotte Bailyn, Joyce K. Fletcher and Deborah Kolb note:

Th e fi rm restructured their daily activities into “quiet times” and “interactive times”. “Th e results of the experiment were remarkable. Th e team achieved an on-time launch of the new product and received several excellence awards for quality. On the personal side,

Business Allied to Recycle Th rough Exchange

and Reuse (BARTER) and Waste Exchanges

Directory are other resources for materials

exchange.

19

team members and their supervisor reported feeling more in control of their own time, less stressed, and less likely to take work and worries home with them at night. Th ey also found themselves thinking twice before interrupting someone, even when it wasn’t quite time, and found that the interactions they did have were more productive and focused. Managers, trying to respect quiet time, reduced the number of status reports they requested and found that this made the engineers more, not less, productive.20

Th is illustration allows managers to view the workplace as an intricate and complex ecosystem where various social, resource, temporal, and spatial constraints aff ect the productivity, creativity, and effi ciency of the individuals and group. Small businesses have a more informal organizational structure and fl exible managerial style and may be able to create small shifts, such as these, to improve workplace dynamics. Accounting for your resources and constraints is the fi rst step to using resources eff ectively.

NATURAL PRINCIPLE TO MANAGEMENT STRATEGY: ORGANIZATION AS AN ORGANISM

Traditional management may have an organization set up similar to a machine, where each position is specifi ed to function in a limited manner. An operator sets the organization and goals, makes decisions, and maintains effi ciency of the parts. Employees are replaceable parts; required to fulfi ll their role in the network for the goal of the organization to be met. Th is organizational model may have been eff ective in the past, however, when circumstances are changing rapidly, these types of organizations have diffi culty adapting “because they

20 Laubacher, Robert, and Michael S. Scott Morton. Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century. Ed. Th omas W. Malone. Massachusetts Insitute of Technology, 2003. Print.

are designed to achieve predetermined goals; they are not designed for innovation.”21

If we entertain the metaphor of the company as an organism, it can be seen as an entity whose survival rests upon its ability to use resources effi ciently, escape predation, and adapt to the changing environment. Traditional management will have much to learn from this metaphor in the ways of becoming more knowledge-centric, diverse, and innovative.

FIND A NICHE

A creature thrives by existing in an environment with no competitors and having ample, renewable resources. Businesses, likewise, need a customer base to subsist upon and require specifi c resources (ideas, skill sets or supplies) to maintain that customer base. Th e business model determines the metabolism of the business by dictating the goods and services produced and therefore the requisite inputs. In the information economy, companies thrive based on their ability to be the fi rst to pioneer and profi t from the resources in the ideaspace. Innovation’s purpose is to discover an untapped idea while a culture of experimentation allows the organization to make the move to inhabit that space to create advantage. Curiously enough, this may not necessarily mean companies should strive to create new knowledge. Th e explosion of knowledge in many technological and scientifi c fi elds in recent history makes novel ways of aggregating and connecting information just as important as the creation of new knowledge. It will be easier for small businesses to develop ideas on how to expand or jump to new market segments because they have a better defi ned customer base and more specifi c geographic market area.

21 Morgan, G., Images of Organization, Sage Publications, Th ousand Oaks, California, 1997, p. 28.

20

Small businesses tend to be able to pick their path by being more independent and unencumbered by corporate bureaucracy. By being free to make quick decisions, small businesses are known for aggressively seeking new opportunities and technologies. Many products with small initial demand not suited for mass production. Specialized niche markets would not be available were it not for small business.

Small businesses have the opportunity to be attuned to the specifi c bioregional space. Th ey know their customers, and have a deeper place in the community as business owners and neighbors. Well-functioning evolutionary systems are attuned to the specifi c bioregional place. When ownership is too far removed from local circumstances, decision-making drifts dangerously away from the businesses optimal level of evolutionary fi tness.22

Innovation through learning, diversity, and rapid evolution. Developing a culture of innovation inherently depends on the ability of the business to understand current circumstances, business realities and project future situations. In other words, the company must be supported by a foundation of knowledge and a culture of learning. Cultures of continuous learning are prime for continuous adaptation and experimentation. As a manager, how do you create a culture of experimentation while protecting the bottom line? Scott Cook founder of Intuit, the company that brought the fi nancial management program, Quicken, notes that managers will have to diverge from the management they were taught and:23

22 Poletti, Frank, and Ogilvy, Jay. “Th e Emergence of a Sustainable Future: Brainstorming better ways to Globalize at the Esalen Institute.” World Futures 59 (2003): 615-62323 http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hbr/hbreditors/2009/09/how_do_innovators_think.html

• Enable collaboration by people with diverse perspectives on a problem.

• Respect the fact that creativity thrives in situations where there is slack and redundancy.

• Rethink job design and incentive systems in light of what really motivates creativity: intellectual challenge and public affi rmation.

• Manage as though we expect creativity from everyone—not just isolated “lone geniuses”.

Including internal and external stakeholders, from customer to supplier, brings diff erent perspectives to the table. By placing the burden of innovation on a wider group of stakeholders, it is possible to obtain a more robust set of solutions and questions. In nature, no one organism evolves, instead it takes a species, a group to shape the future. Th e bad ideas go by the wayside and the good ones persist, however, as a manager it is impossible to have all the ideas or see all the perspectives. It takes the perspective of those constantly engaged in various parts of the business’ collectively produced experience to bring to light inadequacies the manager would never have known. Th ose who regularly experience interactions with the company or its parts can be considered users. William Riggs, visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s management school and Eric von Hippel, professor of Engineering systems and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology posit, “Users generate functionally novel innovations because they experience novel needs well ahead of manufacturers…”24 Just as a diverse gene pool allows for increased adaptability in species, a diversifi ed brain and experience pool is more likely to arrive at a solution in a new way.

24 Riggs, William and Eric von Hippel (1994), “Th e Impact of Scientifi c and Commercial Values on the Sources of Scientifi c Instrument Innovation,” Research Policy 23 (July): 459-469.

21

Nature’s designs and processes did not emerge from a large set of genes. Th e genius of evolution that we see today comes from the refi nement of a series of mutations, in a form of trial and error over billions of years. Genetic diversity and its causes have allowed for all the successful behavioral and physical adaptation strategies we see today. Likewise, companies have the choice to evolve, but must do so as quickly as the external circumstances change. Th ose not matching internal capabilities with the new information environment do not evolve into more fi t organizations and risk operating under unsustainable goals or irrelevant premises. Th e overbearing example of this would be the companies failing to incorporate basic means of reducing their environmental impact such as improving energy effi ciency and waste generation of operations.

Th e physical or outward expression of a genotype is a phenotype. Companies must manifest the innovations they believe will catapult them into a profi table ideaspace. Whether this means instituting an in-offi ce waste reduction eff ort or tying sustainability goals into the company’s mission statement—companies must act upon knowledge to shape themselves to succeed in the opportunities and constraints of tomorrow’s business climate.

Realizing relationships. John Mackey, CEO at Whole Foods has been spearheading the Conscious Capitalism movement—a paradigm shift calling companies to work for a higher set of responsibilities and morals above profi t maximization. At a time when a “majority of the public…believes that

executives are bent on destroying the environment, cooking the books and lining their own pockets”25, corporations are beginning to look up and see that businesses are a part of the society and customers are there voluntarily.

By placing priorities away from making profi ts, companies can create a business of cooperation with those in their supply chain, customer base, and employees. Exploitation of any of these stakeholders will ostracize the business and develop increasingly competitive and undercutting relationships.

In more comprehensive business models the specifi c goals are linked and mutually supportive. Source: http://www2.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jmackey/2006/11/09/conscious-capitalism-creating-a-new-paradigm-for-business/

Start by communing with suppliers or those upstream in the business. Establish trust and come to agreement that profi t seeking is not the only motivation in the business agreement. Relieving tension and promoting community with these stakeholders will allow for further relaxed interactions with customers and others who are downstream of your business.

A conscious company realizes its employees depend on them to provide meaningful work and fair

25 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E6DD1131F93AA35751C1A9639C8B63

Small businesses are relatively resource poor,

making fl exibility in creation of ideas and

innovation a major asset.

22

wages while it is dependent on quality resources from suppliers “upstream.” Understand how the connections above, below, within, and across your organization aff ect your objectives. For example, a company must realize their employees are members of their family and members of the community with other obligations. Demanding more time at work will infringe on the employees other time commitments and create stress—this will feed back into work performance, creativity and effi ciency. Th e realization of community and interdependence comes during the greater realization of the eff ect companies on the whole have had on each other, their customers and the environment and it is the duty of any business, just as any citizen to uphold the welfare of the society.

Show members of the community your commitment to fostering healthy products, healthy relationships and a health community. Th is may mean providing an excellent work environment, supporting local nonprofi t organizations, charities, or engaging the community by attending local events, town hall meetings and interest group meetings.

SPECIES BEHAVIOR TO MANAGEMENT STRATEGY: SWARM INTELLIGENCE

Social insects such as ants and termites are among the most prolifi c species on Earth. With little intelligence and no imposed management, ants make up 15-20 percent of the total weight of all land animals on Earth.26 How can businesses learn from these masters of survival? Eric Bonabeau is one of the world’s leading experts in complex systems and distributed adaptive problem solving and Christopher Meyer is 26 Schultz, Th omas R. “In search of ant ancestors.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97.26 (2000): 14028-4029. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Web. <http://www.pnas.org/content/97/26/14028.full.pdf+html>.

the director of the Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bonabeau and Meyer suggest a key may lie in their swarm intelligence; described as:

Social insect teamwork is largely self-organized, coordinated primarily through the interactions of individual colony members. Together they can solve diffi cult problems even though each interaction might be very simple (one ant merely following the trail left by another). Th e collective behavior that emerges from a group of social insects has been dubbed “swarm intelligence.”27

Th rough millions of years of evolution, nature has selected a set of rules for individual insects to perform; culminating in fl exible and robust collective problem-solving abilities. Bonabeau and Meyer distill the lessons learned from years of research into key advantages of swarm intelligence strategies:• Flexibility: the group can quickly adapt to a

changing environment• Robustness: even when one or more individuals

fail, the group can still perform its tasks• Self-organization: the group needs relatively

little supervision or top-down control

Biologist Anna Dornhaus colors ants to identify individuals and study behavior. Source: www.popsci.com

27 Bonabeau, Eric, and Christopher Meyer. “Swarm Intelligence: A Whole New Way to Th ink About Business.” Harvard Business Review R0105G (2001): 106-14. Harvard Business Review. p. 108

23

How do managers develop rules similar to the ones ingrained in social insects and reduce the need for command-and-control? An example comes from Jim Donehey, when he was CIO of Capital One. Donehey, in an attempt to encourage individual effi ciency with a more hands-free management approach, applied a set of simple rules to guide members of the IT staff to work towards the same goal.1. Always align IT activities with the business (that

is, keep the company’s overall goals in mind).2. Use good economic judgment (spend the money

like it is your own). 3. Be fl exible (do not box yourself into one thought

pattern).4. Have empathy for others in the organization

(when people ask you to do something you do notagree with, put yourself in their shoes).

To further encourage the rules, Donehey provided gaming chips to the business managers with instructions to pass them out to IT staff ers whenever they followed any of the four guidelines. Within a year the group was more unifi ed, empowered to make decisions and work with little top-down management. Th is resulted in an “attrition rate of 4 percent, compared with 20 percent for the IT industry as a whole.”28

Small businesses may not require excessive administration to start the ideas of swarm intelligence. Excessive rule making may interfere with the creative process.

28 Ibid., p. 111

24

Summary and Notes on the Examples

In these examples, we have seen diff erent perspectives on ways to approach product design, the value of community, decision making, management strategies that are sensitive to workplace ecosystem constraints, the importance of niche fi nding, value of inclusive perspective gathering, solution generation, and experimentation. Th is is by no means an exhaustive list, but an introduction to the possibilities of biomimicry’s application. It is important to note the disregard for scale in the application of some of these metaphors. A concept with large governance, say the natural principle of resource cycling, can be applied to something as specifi c as a paper purchasing policy for the department or the organization may pledge to become a zero waste organization.

Attaining biomimicry’s potential rests on an ability to appreciate the natural world. Surely, it is possible to use a biomimetic principle to achieve an end that is not conducive to life. But this is inherently an unsustainable aim and inconsistent with survivability in the long term. An oil company, for example, may take inspiration from trees and their ability to pull water out of the ground only to increase the rate of extraction of oil. But this would be missing the deeper and larger picture of biomimicry. Th e processes and designs of nature are only eff ective and sustainable because they adhere to the laws of other life-conducive natural systems. To extract a singular idea from nature and apply it out of context, that is, without regard for environmental or social consequences is shortsighted and an abuse to nature and humanity.

Industry best practices and biomimetic solutions are not mutually exclusive. Approaching problems

using a natural analogy is just one way to arrive at an appropriate solution. A careful study of management science, for example, may end up coming to a similar solution. Th e distinction between an idea that is derived from nature and one that is an industry-derived best practice may not always be clear. While it can be argued that all innovations must be derived from “nature” in one way or another the goal of biomimics is not to claim every good idea as their own, but to pragmatically approach nature and learn from her vast treasures of knowledge, beauty, and inspiration that is present in the world around us. Biomimicry comes in the form of illustrations or metaphors—such as the “organization as an organism” example, in which case, it is the new perspective that may shed benefi cial insight for the organization. Another form of biomimicry is the application of a rigorously studied process or behavior as in the example with the social insects. As biomimicry is still an emerging discipline, undoubtedly there are other types of lessons to be learned from the natural world that are not yet known. Th e life sciences that form the basis for biomimicry are, of course, legitimate sciences, but the means of linking these data to human processes is just beginning and can be informal and cross-disciplinary. We can call it an art of linking and learning from disparate disciplines.

How organizations are able to take advantage

of biomimicry is only bounded by their

imagination and knowledge of the natural

world.

25

Learning to Use Biomimicry

For businesses, biomimicry is a strategy for innovation generation. In the generation process itself, it allows the people involved to exercise important skills for innovative thinking. Like any other strategy it must be planned for and implemented diligently. Th e following set of steps is designed to help the organization produce a work environment conducive to employing the biomimicry metaphor. Th e reader will notice some of the steps themselves are composed of metaphors previously mentioned. Th e framework for change is quite basic and partially borrows from the framework for change provided in Th e Natural Step for Business.29

A PROACTIVE STRATEGY IS PROMPTED BY INTERNAL DESIRES WITHIN THE COMPANY

Th is starts with understanding the global pattern. Become informed about why the existing paradigm of business is ruining the biosphere and increasingly separating the rich and the poor. Change in understanding will give way to a change in attitude. Th e case for climate change, unsustainable resource extraction, and ecosystem destruction is undeniably evident. Biomimicry is a means for a business to turn the tide and take up our evolutionary imperative. Present the case by linking the motivations of your employees with the motivations for a new paradigm. For example, negative health eff ects resulting from poor environmental quality is something we can all agree is something we would like to avoid.

29 Nattrass, Brian, Altomare, Mary 1999. Th e Natural Step for Business. Wealth, Ecology, and the Evolutionary Corporation. British Columbia: New Society Publishers.

100 percent conversion may not need to be the goal. According to the ideas of Malcolm Gladwell, a New York Times best selling author of pop sociology and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most infl uential people, only a “tipping point” needs to be reached for the whole to come around. First try bouncing ideas off employees to get a sense for how to approach an implementation.

THIS MEANS SUBSTANTIAL CHANGE

Th e ideologies of the traditionally managed organization are ingrained and many people are inherently afraid of the unknown. Change this by making the goals concrete and the means clear. Encourage thought exploration of basic company goals by asking heretical questions such as “Can we run our business with no waste?” Th e aim of asking “What would nature do?” is a design question to change the business from the ground up—it is not a tangential pursuit or separate department.

Employees may feel comfortable with the status quo, but continuous improvement requires continuous learning and applying. Organizations may fi nd employees feel empowered by the fact that they are able to infl uence the direction of the business. While infl uencing people’s worldviews is a task requiring

Half of the non-farm gross domestic product

(GDP) is produced through fi rms that have

fewer than 20 employees. Improving the way

small businesses operate will be signifi cant

step towards making business in the US more

environmentally responsible.

26

tact and sensitivity, specifi c mental hurdles are easier to overcome. A typical outdated misconception is that all environmental practices cost a lot of money. Prioritize those initiatives with the fastest payback fi rst to realize savings. Examples of these include lighting retrofi ts, and energy effi cient building improvements to reduce heating and cooling costs. Waste reduction strategies and increased recycling can reduce waste hauling charges. Th ese relatively easy and quick changes will accrue savings that can be turned over for projects with longer paybacks.

Th e operating environment of all business will change substantially; those wishing to survive must undergo substantial internal change to become more fl exible and transparent.

LEADERSHIP

Let go of the dominator model of social organization. Th ese models consist of a win-lose paradigm involving rank, hierarchies of power and control, and competition.30 If a group were traveling the globe, the skills and knowledge of the sailor, medic, mountaineer, and navigator become useful in response to the situation at hand. Each member has immense value and is, at diff erent points in time, called to infl uence the group. Th e web of interconnections and dependence is larger and stronger in this type of organization.

Emergent leaders seek the input of their constituents to help shape the path of the organization while realizing they cannot possibly micromanage for results. In doing so, no one side dominates while the other submits. Each possesses the power to have their say and the potential of the team awakens.

30 Eisler, Riane 1987. Th e chalice and the blade: Our history, our future. Cambridge: Harper & Row.

Emergent leaders realize the systems within the employees’ heads, the organization as a whole, and society at large are too complex to predict. By putting their fi ngers on the pulse of the change in the workplace, community or world, leaders can create more contextually sensitive directives. A single controller at the top of a hierarchy is an organization unwieldy in an era of rapidly changing social desires and resource constraints.

Get your employees excited to solve their own, the company’s, and even the world’s environmental challenges.31 Make sure they know their input is necessary and appreciated. In the future, as talented workers seek meaningful work, they will look to the ethical and responsible thought leaders in the fi eld that provide experiences relevant to the evolving marketplace.

ASSESS STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS

Th is is a standard point, applicable to any implementation of strategy. A company must know itself to understand potential outcomes of changing its strategy. Without knowing the areas in need of improvement, an organization cannot realize its potential. Start off by conducting an ‘environmental audit’ to assess the material and energy infl ows and outfl ows of your organization. Do not forget to include input from employees, suppliers, and customers for qualitative information such as employee assessments of the workspace, management, work culture, quality of interaction etc. After assessing inward characteristics, observe outwards towards the strategy of peers and the

31 Winston, Andrew Green Recovery Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top Harvard Business Press.

27

market at large. Th is will help identify market segments to engage in and those to avoid.

VISION FOR HOW BIOMIMICRY CAN ADD VALUE TO YOUR COMPANY

Develop a clear vision and translate it into a meaningful mission statement or objective. How can the organization improve its core competencies through biomimicry? Th e consulting fi rm, Biomimicry Guild translates Life’s Principles of...:

• Build from the bottom up. • Self-assemble. • Optimize rather than maximize. • Use free energy. • Cross-pollinate. • Embrace diversity. • Adapt and evolve. • Use life-friendly materials and processes. • Engage in symbiotic relationships. • Enhance the bio-sphere.

...into valuable business returns32:

• Saving energy• Cutting material costs• Redefi ning and eliminating “Waste”• Heightening existing product categories• Defi ning new product categories and industries • Driving revenue • Brand building

Th ese are the typical benefi ts of the lessons learned from nature. Large companies like Nike, GE, and Hewlett-Packard are beginning to realize these benefi ts but unless you can aff ord services of cutting-edge consulting services, it will be up to leaders in the organization to set the vision. Th ese corporations

32 http://www.biomimicryguild.com/guild_biomimicry.html

can be thought of as learning the principles of biomimicry and proceeding straight to the business advantage this creates (See fi gure below). Th ese corporations may not fi nd value in learning either the fi rst principles or in fundamentally changing the nature of the organization by incorporating biomimicry into the corporate DNA, that is, to become a learning or evolutionary organization. If this is the case, the learned biomimetics will be only a single injection of innovation while approaching from the left side of the diagram will allow organization to continually discover and employ principles of biomimicry.

For maximum benefi t, businesses should choose the route from A to B to C to D. As the business environment changes the learning organization should adapt by employing appropriate applications of biomimicry.

Merely acting upon the recommendations of a consulting fi rm may not change the internal functioning of a company compared to if the company underwent the learning process themselves.

First Principles/Need for Business

Paradigm Shift (A)

Learning/Evoluti onary Organizati on

(B)

Competi ti ve Advantage/Innovati on

(D)

Principles of Biomimicry

(C)

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A separate set of benefi ts will accrue from understanding the value of studying the life sciences, becoming a learning organization and employing the principles of biomimicry for innovation. Th ese benefi ts include those already discussed in the leadership section but also include experiential benefi ts and skills learned by employees. Associating seemingly unrelated topics, ability to experiment and questioning the status quo to open up the bigger picture are important skills for innovative thinking33 and are developed during the act of employing biomimicry. Gaining these skills is both empowering to the employee and useful for any organization.

According to Nattrass and Altomare, authors of Th e Natural Step for Business, rewards received by companies engaged in sustainable business practices include an increase in effi ciency, attraction of talent, innovation of new products and services, development of knowledge base and core competencies for the market of the future, improvement of relations with local communities, among others.34 Most importantly, small businesses are in a better position to off er positions where employees can derive meaning and value. Increasingly talent is drawn towards businesses with matching ideals and ethics.

Remember, biomimicry is not the ends but a means towards known benefi cial trends, identifying your business’s role in the community, however it is defi ned, will be critical in specifying your vision. Create organizational or department goals and objectives as realistic, defi nable and achievable steps towards the vision.

33 http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hbr/hbreditors/2009/09/how_do_innovators_think.html34 Nattrass, Brian, Altomare, Mary 1999. p. 192-198.

BECOMING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION

Just as human beings are constantly reacting to new information, so too must companies be sensitive to social trends, key relationships, and internal threats. Th ese types of knowledge have always been important sources of competitive advantage for most companies. However, create an organization and climate of continual learning; the management’s task is to establish conditions, or design the workplace processes to create creativity and synergy. World renowned management strategist Peter Senge describes the learning organization in the often quoted Th e Fifth Discipline as a place where “people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtures, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together”.35 Ideas must be encouraged, mistakes must be made and lessons must be learned along the way. Th is is especially important in times of rapid change. Each person’s commitment and ability to learn must be tapped for the entire organization to be adaptive and productive. Th is shift in responsibility is a relatively unpracticed and will require a signifi cant shift of mind among employees. Senge notes, it is not enough for companies to know how to survive. Learning organizations must learn how to enhance their capacity to create, what he calls “generative learning”.36 Having a diverse and independent workgroup will mitigate the costs of mistakes made.

Incorporating all stakeholders in the idea farming process will help you view your business from more

35 Senge, Peter 1993. Th e Fifth Discipline: Th e art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday Currency.36 Ibid., p. 14

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perspectives. It will be easier to see it as an organism, depended on and dependent upon other organism in the community. Taking these soft data and including them into the fabric of how you do business will require a culture of innovation and experimentation. Please see the resources on becoming a learning organization.

COMMON KNOWLEDGE OF ECOLOGY AND FIRST PRINCIPLES

Regardless of the position, everyone should be somewhat familiar with the role of business in producing wealth disparity, resource consumption, reduced well-being, biodiversity loss, water resource constraints, public health issues and climate change. From there it will be up to the leaders in the organization to propose biomimicry as an engine to diverge from the trend and innovate towards a restorative business model. Spreading the ability to innovate through biomimicry releases the burden of innovation from a limited set of perspectives and multiplies the possibilities with a larger set of perspectives. Th is allows all employees to feel they have more control in the direction of the whole, while it increases the organization’s base of innovation generation. Small businesses are leaders

in off ering training and advancement opportunities to workers.37 Although including employees in innovative work practices may be informal and in-house, it off ers novel and valuable work experience

FEEDBACK

Ecosystems maintain their balance and elegance through constant material and energy feedback systems. Imagine trying to manage a plot of Amazonian rainforest with its dizzying number of plants, fruits, soil conditions, and animals! But this is not the case; the resiliency of this system is in its diversity, effi ciency, and accurate communication of resource levels. A system with such interconnectedness, dependence and communication requires less management, and relies on self-regulating feedback to maintain balance. In plots of a forest, taller plants shade out the understory, this sends a “signal” to smaller plants that there are is insuffi cient sunlight here to prosper.

In nature, there is no intent on the part of the tress to send signals, but in the workplace these are the types of feedback communications that must take place to achieve a type of self-organization. As in the case of the swarm intelligence, the signals must be simple and easily recognizable while the triggered response must be equally simple and eff ective. In eff ect, more nodes of regulation are being created and management is becoming more diff use. At each point an employee who is in touch with the situation will be able to proactively deal with complications before they snowball. Invariably, kinks in the road will need to be dealt with, but setting up a self-managing organization will go a long way in reducing time spent managing and free more time for leading.

37 Scarborough, Norman M., and Th omas W. Zimmerer. Eff ective Small Business Management. 6th ed. Pearson Education, 1999. Print.

Th ree types of knowledge necessary for

contemporary, evolutionary business must have

to create value and innovate (Laszlo, 2003):

1. Basic scientifi c management

2. Knowledge outside of the enterprise, about

industry, the market, consumers, etc.

3. Sociocultural dynamics both within and

outside of the organization. Insight drawn

from other sciences.

30

Conclusion

Mankind currently faces a wide assortment of global development problems that include unsustainable energy production, life threatening water scarcity issues,38 ineffi cient and wasteful production processes, and corporate social irresponsibility. Our eyes are only just being opened to the global intricacies we have muddled up. Both the scale and the extent to which our systems have degraded the environment are unprecedented. Th ese man-made processes are inherently unsustainable when considering there are limited Earth-bound resources. Continuing to ignore our dependency on these environmentally-based problems will prove to rob the current and future generations of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If the mankind desires to achieve a state of sustainability, a paradigm shift must occur in the goals and means of the businesses that make up our current economy.

Businesses are an integral force of change in the economic and environmental landscape and are in a position to lead the way to become more than just sustainable. Many economic and environmental incentives are in place to radically change the pursuit of business, however, the design of our industrial processes and business hierarchies are both examples of reductionist tendencies that tend to inhibit change. Businesses employ a variety of personalities, skills sets and knowledge sets. To use each employee as a cog in the machine, as traditional and ongoing management suggests, is an unrealistic approach to productivity. Traditional management thought tries to maintain simple systems for those,

38 http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/water/global_water_crisis.html

which are complex, holistic, interdependent and often nonlinear. While organizations under more traditional management theory might regard responsibilities to the environment and society as irrelevant or economic burdens, innovative organizations are discovering sources of competitive advantage.

Smaller businesses employ much of the nation’s workforce and provide valuable opportunities for employee training. Advancements in socio-environmental practices at the small business level would represent a signifi cant advancement for sustainable development. Organizations with a less formal hierarchy may be more adaptable to the management styles and ideas required to thrive in the new business climate. Th ose companies able to grasp the relatedness in today’s fl urry of knowledge will be the fi rst to piece together sustainable systems.

All of the examples found in the paper can be seen as an undertaking of design. As natural forces designed the environment and all species, our study of the world around us allows us access to successful, underlying design tools to shape our economy and companies. Companies that increase eff ectiveness, reduce negative socio-environmental impact, and create community will be the ones making intelligent use of those tools.

Biomimicry attempts to parallel the survival strategies of nature and the human survival strategy and for businesses this can be an eff ective tool. At all scales of nature, from a simple leaf to a bustling rainforest, we see principles, processes and designs, which are conducive to survival. While

31

understanding the basic natural laws and basic ecological principles is more or less straightforward changing the business model to imitate nature and operate in harmony with natural laws is profoundly complex because it necessitates a rethinking or redesigning of many foundational assumptions. Th e act of employing nature’s design requires a humility that was lost in our industrial age. Biomimicry is a demonstration of the awareness that we too are bound by ecological constraints. Just as nature fl ourishes within these constraints, the evolved business will fi nd a wealth of ideas to bring success in a responsible and respectable manner.

32

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