San Diego Zoo invites business community to explore design and strategy innovations inspired by nature
New study investigates potential global economic impact of biomimicry
Thursday November 12, 2009 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
As part of a multi-pronged strategy to enhance awareness of nature as a provider of solutions and strengthen global conservation efforts, the San Diego Zoo is inviting the business community to explore product design and organizational strategy innovations inspired by nature.

In 2007, San Diego Zoo representatives met with Janine Benyus and Dayna Baumeister of the Biomimicry Guild, the world’s only biomimicry consultancy, to discuss the emerging field of biomimicry. They agreed the approach has the potential both to transform industry and save nature.

The San Diego Zoo has since embarked on a partnership with the guild as well as a number of research institutions, corporations and the City of San Diego to build biomimicry education and services.

In addition to telling the story of what nature has to offer and collaborating on various educational initiatives, the zoo is consulting with corporations to surface product design and strategy innovations.

The zoo offers corporate retreats with a focus on green business practices and biomimicry. Companies can choose modules that introduce sustainability and/or biomimicry, go on special biomimicry tours and participate in interactive exercises that train researchers, designers and engineers to think about problem-solving in a different way. 

Jon Prange, venture business manager at the Zoological Society of San Diego, says looking to nature has the potential to provide an incredible business advantage for corporations and in the process transform the green movement, which still tends to draw reluctant engagement from businesses that see taking on green initiatives as important but not necessarily economically advantageous.

“The solutions you find in nature are going to be very efficient and they’re going to be innovative because nature has to be very creative,” he says.

“So now you’re talking about a strategy for business that grows the top line, creates new products and is wildly efficient.

“Those innovations drop to the bottom line, creating greater profitability, which transforms the green movement into something that gets businesses’ attention. It’s a winning strategy.”

A team from Point Loma Nazarene University is studying the economic impact of biomimicry moving forward, which Helen Cheng, conservation finance manager with the San Diego Zoo, expects to be significant.

“The more you start looking to nature for new ideas and new innovations, the more that industry is going to grow,” she says.

Prange says the need to save habitat is becoming urgent as the rate of species extinction increases faster than any organization can address.

As a global leader in conservation, the zoo’s new work around biomimicry is very synergistic with its conservation efforts, he says.

On a related level, considering the world’s resources in general, which are depleting rapidly, it is also becoming critical that how things are built and designed be transformed, which is where nature can be a forefront supplier of solutions as well, says Cheng.

Prange notes that in addition to these crises forcing a different approach to industry, the new technological capabilities available today have positioned the world to explore nature’s solutions to an unprecedented degree.

For more on the San Diego Zoo’s biomimicry efforts visit this link.

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