Mimicking Nature: How Can We Allow Nature to Inspire Us?

In this bonus 7th conversation with the world-renowned Biomimicry expert Janine BENYUS, we explored what we can learn from Nature’s engineers and physicists who have been around for 3.8 billion years. Janine, as well as numerous well-known corporate brands are working on creating truly sustainable products that are both functional and harmless for all life on our planet. She explains her Amoeba to Zebra approach to a challenge of looking for how the Natural World finds solutions to its problems. Also discussed are the topics of conservation, how organisms help each other, the “wood-wide web”, and the right combination of life to keep systems healthy. This webinar forms a perfect bookend to our very first session of stars Webinar series – “The Multi-faceted Path to Sustainability” in September 2023 which covered systems and systemic change.

This stars Webinar had been moderated by Dr Gordana KIERANS, Former Professor of International Business; Managing Partner; Circular Economy Consultant, MGT OPEN j.d.o.o.; stars Southeast Europe Alumni Chapter President, Grižane, Croatia.

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We celebrate the finish of our webinar series with a poem by the American poet David Wagoner, called ‘Lost’.

Lost

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to raven.
No two branches are the same to wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you.

David Wagoner

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About the speaker:
Janine BENYUS is a biologist, author, innovation consultant, and self-proclaimed “nature nerd.” She introduced the world to nature-inspired design in her 1997 book “Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature”.

In Biomimicry, she explores an emerging discipline that emulates nature’s designs and processes (e.g., solar cells that are fashioned to mimic leaves) to create a healthier, more sustainable planet. Since her book’s release, Janine has spread the gospel and evolved the practice of biomimicry by speaking worldwide about what we can – and must – learn from the genius of Mother Nature. In 1998, Janine co-founded the world’s first bio-inspired consultancy, Biomimicry 3.8 (formerly the Biomimicry Guild), bringing Nature’s inspiring sustainable designs to over 250 corporate clients including Boeing, Colgate-Palmolive, Ford, Microsoft, Nike, General Electric, Herman Miller, HOK architects, IDEO, Interface, Natura, Procter and Gamble, Levi’s, Kohler, and General Mills.