Biomimicry (1997)

If upon first reading the title of this book you were slightly lost, don’t feel alone.  At first I thought it may be something to do with French street artists using natural camouflage!  Luckily, I turned to the blurb and was immediately fascinated by Janine Benyus’s stimulating and imaginative book about the possible future of environmental manufacturing/design and sustainability.

Benyus writes with adventurous prose and genuine enthusiasm about the potential direction of a series of different products/economy sectors/holistic systems in a book that, frankly, opened my eyes to a number of budding marriages between science and nature that had not even crossed my mind.  At times it feels like a science fiction novel, but the book is incredibly well researched – Benyus interviews many of the most credible and innovative scientists in each of the respective fields she writes about – and has a great blend of idealism and pragmatism.

Benyus playfully deconstructs the efforts made by scientists to mimic nature’s best designs in order to improve functionality and reduce their impact on the environment with the ‘Holy Grail’ of reaching sustainability (or even net positive impacts).  Just a few of the ideas that genuinely caught my attention include:

Bio-Computing

Understanding the computing strength of DNA and how this can be harnessed to radically improve the speed and size of our computers is incredibly hard to fathom (and I am certain the proceeding explanation will not do it justice, so please research more on your own if you’re interested).  Natural or bio-computing involves completely divorcing your mind from the idea of computers as man-made, solid (and slow) objects. 

Needless to say that my scientific knowledge isn’t strong enough to properly boil the process down to a digestible sentence in one blog, but the basic idea was developed by the head of the of the cutting-edge BioComputing Group, Michael Conrad, and revolves around harnessing the processing power of DNA/enzymes/proteins.  To evolve beyond digital computation (a.k.a. linear computation), where one piece of information is processed at a time using a series of zeros and ones, to parallel or 3D computation (similar to the brain) in which multiple networks are connected and exponentially more computations are processed at the same time, Benyus describes the switch from the world of silicon computing to carbon computing.

Like conventional computers, DNA takes information, processes it and passes it along to initiate an action.  Protein molecules have specific receptors that can feel for other shapes, consequently, they are the ultimate pattern recognisers (which is essentially what conventional computer code is).  Were you to hitch together millions of these proteins you would could create molecules that, when activated by a specific light frequency, could create a specific shape that interlocks with a corresponding shape/line of code to create a new sequence/computation.  Known as a “tactilizing processor,” these proteins compute simultaneously and evolve to create smarter and smarter networks.  Consequently, without a single electric wire, a large number of disparate inputs would be sorted, coded and translated simultaneously into a coherent answer.   

The power of such computing is, I think, not understated in the following quote, “a DNA computer could perform more operations in a few days than all the calculations ever made by all the computers ever built.”

The potential of such computing is truly difficult to comprehend.  Not only does it apply to computation but also storage as, “a million times more information could be stored at the bottom of a test tube of DNA than in the entire human brain.”

The most modest of early applications includes real-time facial recognition software that works in any environment, no matter how crowded or complex (current linear computation struggles with such a task).  However, you don’t need to be George Orwell to think about the repercussions of being able to create extremely powerful little computers that can fit inside your blood stream!

Natural Fibres

Current methods for producing synthetic materials all involve serious levels of heating, beating or treating that all inescapably energy intensive.  Yet, in nature, we see that the spider is able to produce a silk that is five times stronger than steel without any ovens, machines or chemicals.

Other animals have similarly amazing abilities to produce materials that man-made materials cannot yet come close to matching.  Consider a rhino horn that repairs itself, an abalone shell that has twice the structural strength of any known ceramic or a mussel’s adhesive that is completely water resistant and reusable.  In addition, all of these animals manage to produce such results without toxicity.

Consequently, Benyus analyses the efforts being made by scientists to understand the protein sequences of such materials and how we may attempt to recreate the conditions in which they are naturally made.  Benyus never fails to stimulate the imagination and provides an exciting insight into how we may soon be seeing products like synthesised crystal which could be used to manufacture (virtually) unbreakable windshields.

Solar Energy

Swanson’s Law (similar to Moore’s Law in computer processing) dictates that the price of solar photovoltaic cells tends to drop 20% for every doubling of industry capacity.  As encouraging as that may be, Benyus explores how the photosynthetic potential of solar panels can radically improve by studying the electron transfer in the reaction centre of photosynthetic cells in different types of leaves.  The most revolutionary application of this research being the ability to create power packs that are activated by sunlight (meaning you could carry back up power with you to any corner of the globe!).

Natural Medicine

Biomimics across the world are studying primates to see how they use plants, minerals and bacteria to regulate their digestive system.  Surprisingly this has already been the inspiration for many previous medicines (and even contraceptives) and continues to provide innovative solutions to the healthcare industry.

It’s hard to know which ideas will prove fruitful and which will die on the laboratory table, but it’s Benyus’s childlike enthusiasm that really turns this book from a dry exploration of current scientific trends into a wonderfully optimistic book about Man’s potential to live harmoniously on this planet.  It’s ‘keen green’ if ever I’ve read such a thing, but I can’t fault the author for its truly infectious tones.

Benyus concludes by talking about the different types of natural systems and I think she draws a powerful parallel in doing so.  In nature there are three types of systems:

I.                    Type I Systems expand quickly, using all the resources and filling all available space at the expense of others (and ultimately their own – as they always eventually collapse).  Type I examples include things like ragweed, crabgrass, viruses and bacteria, etc.  They’re characterised by short-term thinking and opportunism.

II.                  Type II Systems attempt to create rooting systems and will fight their neighbours for the space around them but are not as voraciously dominant as Type I systems.  They’re characterised by a mixture of medium growth rates with eventual prudence (such as bushes and seedlings).

III.                Type III Systems grow slowly, plant deep roots and seek equilibrium with their surroundings.  The quintessential Type III is a redwood tree: patient, seeking optimisation of resources with no waste and consideration of its neighbours.

It’s obvious where the analogy is heading, but nonetheless a salient point to make.  Humans have for too long behaved like Type I systems, drawing down on natural resources, creating waste that is not recycled, maximising rather than optimising and, in the process, fouling our own nest.  All three systems are necessary to grow a forest, but over time the Type III system always wins.  

I would love for Benyus to update this book, as it was written in 1997 and is still, in 2013, way ahead of its time.  It undoubtedly awoke something in the social and scientific conscience that we all know to be true: we are not bigger or better than Mother Nature and we must learn all we can from her or we’ll be thrown out the classroom.

Score: 84/100

P.S. In researching whether Benyus had updated this book, I did stumble across a TED Talk that she gave in 2009.  It covers some of the material in the book and a couple of new, updated ideas as well – definitely worth the time if the above caught your attention.

Natural Capitalism (1999)

 

The environmental movement and the capitalist agenda have traditionally appeared to be natural adversaries; at the very least, uneasy bed partners.  However, Natural Capitalism is a compelling and detailed read on how this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the solution to modern environmental problems.

Written in 1999 by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins (who is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute – one of the best environmental research organisations in the world, if you haven’t heard of them) and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism is a blueprint for how capitalism can evolve to properly respect the environment while at the same time harnessing the unquestionable dynamism and individual autonomy of free markets.

The authors make the convincing argument that there is no need for a retreat from capitalism to heavy-handed regulation (not to discount the beneficial role of smart regulation that properly defines the appropriate level of risk we are willing to accept in free markets).  Recent economic experience has taught the lesson that the market feedback loops, that supposedly keep capitalism on a self-correcting course, are failing to work.  This is epitomised by the idea that, “For all their power and vitality, markets are only tools.  They make a good servant but a bad master and a worse religion.”  Just like a thriving democracy, capitalism requires responsible and informed citizens.

Unfortunately, factors such as oil, coal and natural gas subsidies, unaccounted for externalities (such as cost of addressing pollution and climate change), the avoidance of transparency, monopolization of markets, lobbying for private benefits and capital concentration amongst the world’s wealthiest have led to a gross distortion of global energy and resource markets. 

Consequently, it is time we abandoned our trajectory toward economic fundamentalism, in which the tax payer is left to pick up the bill for environmental degradation, and re-imagined the driving ambition of commerce, where we “take nothing, waste nothing, do no harm and do well by doing good, not at the expense of the planet but of less alert competitors.”

As a starting point, the authors outline the basic rules or assumptions governing our current economic system and the economic theory that underpins it:

·         Free-market systems reinvest profits to make labour and capital increasingly productive.

·         The maximization of total output (usually measured in GDP) maximises human well-being.

·         Any resource shortage that may occur will elicit the necessary development of substitutes.

·         A healthy environment is balanced against the need for economic growth.

·         Free enterprise will allocate people and resources to their best use.

In contrast, the vision of Natural Capitalism posited by the authors, works around the following adaptation of the rules, as if living systems mattered:

·        The environment is the primary factor of production (before human, manufactured and financial capital) as it is “the envelope, containing, provisioning and sustaining the entire economy.”

·        Future economic progress best takes place in democratic, market-based systems of production and distribution where all forms of capital (manufactured, financial, and especially human and natural) are fully valued.

·        Human welfare is best served by improving the quality and flow of desired services, rather than increasing total output.

To begin to shape this new economy the authors focus on four principles:

1.       Radical resource productivity

2.       Biomimetic production

3.       A solutions economy, and

4.       Reinvestment in nature.

Read as a list this is a pretty abstract plan and one that does not really jump off the page.  Consequently, I want to take the time to discuss some of the ideas contained within this book that I think make it one the most innovative and important books I’ve read.

Radical resource productivity is all about using what we have more efficiently.  This has the benefit of slowing the rate at which we deplete our resources and emit pollution.  The authors take the time to document the plethora of ways in which nearly all environmental and social harm is a by-product of wasteful use of human and natural resources. 

A central tenet of resource productivity (and the book) is the idea of “Factor Ten” improvements – a 90% reduction in energy and materials intensity – and how they can be applied to almost every business, everywhere.  To do so, the authors explain the power of “thinking backward” and how this can lead to “tunnelling through the cost barrier.”  To think backward is the idea that when you envision a way to make a process more efficient you think downstream to upstream because when you save one unit of energy furthest downstream (closest to the finish) you avoid the need to generate energy earlier in the system.  These savings multiply as they are traced back as energy is always lost in transmission downstream (e.g. friction).  This can apply to manufacturing just as naturally as it can to human work flow.  Working in this direction, successive components become simpler, smaller and cheaper.  This leads to what is known as “tunnelling through the cost barrier” which describes the phenomenon in which you receive diminishing returns on your efforts to improve efficiency until a certain point when you realise that you don’t have to pay for capacity you do not need (see the diagram below for help with visualising this). 

 

For example, imagine a system pumping water through pipes: you start downstream by using a pipe that reduces friction, then you straighten the pipes’ layout as much as possible so you don’t unnecessarily lose momentum and also improve the sealant at all the joints so you don’t have so much transmission loss.  Then the ‘eureka’ moment comes when you realise your efficiency gains mean that you can use a smaller generator to pump the same amount of water as before, thus drastically reducing your energy use.  That is tunnelling through the cost barrier and the authors do an excellent job of explaining how this type of thinking can be used in many contexts.

This kind of holistic systems approach regularly leads to unintended benefits; the authors conclude by noting “You know you are on track when your solution for one problem accidentally solves several others.”

The second factor is biomimetic production, which is a fancy way of saying that you should always endeavour to turn waste in value.  This is accomplished by removing waste from the system and closing the resource cycle (upcoming reviews on the books Biomimicry and Cradle to Cradle will greatly expand on these ideas if you’re interested).

The father of such thinking is Taiichi Ohno who created the system of “Muda” (Japenese for waste/futility) at Toyota in the 1940s in which any activity which absorbs resources but creates no value is eliminated from the system.  This approach primarily applies to manufacturing but can be deployed in all economic sectors: retail, design, customer services, etc.  The focus is simply that value continually flows at the pull of customers – nothing is produced upstream until it is requested downstream.

This approach was brought to the U.S. by James Womack and Daniel Jones in their adaptation, Lean Thinking.  The approach concentrates of seven sources of waste:

·         Transport

·         Inventory

·         Motion

·         Waiting

·         Over Production

·         Over Processing, and

·         Defects.

Having a father who works as an engineer, I’m assured that this kind of thinking has been common place in manufacturing for many decades.  A quick search of systems thinking like Kaizen, Six Sigma and Just-in-Time Manufacturing reveal the broad application of such practices beyond the factories of Ford and Toyota.

Consequently, it would appear that radical resource productivity and biomimetic production have been understood and applied for some time; the challenge is expanding the scenarios in which they are used and encouraging people to consider these principles in everything they do.  In this respect the authors are asking for an evolution of current practice.  Where the book really comes into its own, and introduces what I consider to be revolutionary idea, is the solutions economy.

The solutions economy is a fundamental shift in the way we buy and consume goods and services.  Instead of buying the physical item, the authors advocate the idea that we should regularly contract for the service it provides instead.  This was best illustrated by the example of air conditioning.  When you buy an air conditioning unit to cool your home or office, you don’t really want to own the metal box of components; you want the benefit of being cool. 

This shift, from possession of goods to utility of services, will incentivise the provision of the most up to date technology by your service provider (because it will be the most cost effective and therefore leaves the provider with a higher profit margin once the cost of providing the service is subtracted from the agreed service price – which of course will be renegotiated down at the end of the term of the contract as the service has become cheaper to provide).  Furthermore, when selling a service, the business retains ownership of the input and you encourage retrieval and reuse of the raw materials and remove the inconvenience of disposal and recycling from the consumer.  This way, you align customer and provider objectives creating lifelong customers, instead of repeated disposable purchases with unnecessary waste.  You probably already have a contract for your phone, why not for your computer, your car or your furniture? 

The authors reference textiles company, Interface, as great example: they produce carpeting and then contract the service of continual floor covering (because you don’t really want to own the carpet), replace the carpet whenever you want, and then reuse all the materials.  This has led to a situation in which they barely use any new materials now and have reduced their energy input by 97% while still providing a great product and improving profitability.  “In an economy of service and flow, an entire company may end up owning little or nothing but accomplishing more, while being located nowhere to sell everywhere.”

Lastly, Natural Capitalism would not be complete if it did not advocate closing the loop and reinvesting in nature.  After all, nature truly does determine the limits of own our growth and we must recognise this truism if we are to avoid the ultimate Malthusian dilemma. 

The authors present an intriguing study in which scientists attempted to quantify the value of the abundant eco-system services that nature provides by setting up a biosphere in which all of nature’s services had to be recreated to support eight scientists for two years.  The bill for replicating nature for two years, for eight people: $200 million!  Just a few of the services they highlighted include:

·         The production of oxygen

·         The purification of water and air

·         The regulation of the chemical composition of the atmosphere

·         Natural pest and disease control by insects and birds

·         Flood prevention and regulation of runoff

·         Storage and recycling of nutrients.

In my opinion, the case for reinvesting in our natural capital is as simple as the principle that you replace what you take and you appreciate the richness that is brought to our lives by the fecundity of nature.  However, if you’re more of a numbers guy, consider that the study calculated the value of 17 eco-system services provided worldwide to be $36 trillion – the Gross World Product, when this study was conducted in 1999, was $39 trillion.

It may be perhaps overstating the obvious at this point, but I learnt a lot and was truly impressed by this book.  It may be a bit on the technical side for the casual reader, but as a tool for educating business leaders and government regulators what an economy that properly values natural resources, addresses pollution and respects free markets would look like (all without taxing carbon!), this book is going to be your first port of call.

When design works with nature and not against it, when resources are used frugally, new technologies are adopted and broken loops are closed, toxicity is designed out and health in.  Even though most global economies have started to recover since the crash of 2008, we still face a fundamental problem with their design.  I hope that our economy recovers strongly and we can get back to focusing on long term environmental issues but, moving forward, let us not forget that just because we have the ability to accelerate a car that is low on petrol does not mean that the tank is full!

Score: 92/100

 

Hot, Flat and Crowded (2008)

In 1962 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring captured the hearts and minds of young hippies and bearded scientists across the USA.  Her exposé on the harmful effects pesticides were having on our natural resources inspired decades of subsequent research and helped lay the foundations of the modern environmental movement (also see James Lovelock’s Gaia, 1979, for a UK equivalent).  For better or worse, most the “greens” of my generation (I was born in 1987) have the reference of Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), which brought international attention to the threat of climate change, as their call to action.

For me, it all started with Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded (HF&C).  Now perhaps I was a little late to the party having only seriously started to consider and research environmental issues on my own time in 2008.  I mean, I knew climate change was bad, continuing to import oil from foreign countries was bad, those new compact fluorescent light bulbs were good and those bright yellow Hummers were definitely bad, but I certainly couldn't speak knowledgeably about the problem or any potential solutions.  But that is exactly why I have such a special reverence for this book; by dissecting the issues and exploring how they are all connected I felt emboldened to learn all I could.

Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, spending most of his professional life writing articles about global trade and foreign affairs for the New York Times, and publishing books about Middle Eastern politics.  In 2005 however, Friedman wrote the acclaimed book, The World is Flat, which hit upon that deepest of Western insecurities: Globalization.  However, in my opinion, it is in HF&C that Friedman delivers his best work.  By pulling together his expertise in politics and economics, then investigating how they interact with the challenge of climate change, Friedman has painted a vivid picture of the dynamic forces shaping the world today and the enormity of the task that lies before us.

It’s not going to win any prizes for most imaginative title, but it does capture the essence of the threads that run through the book:

• Hot:  The rapid increase in the consumption rate of fossil fuels is pushing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere to unprecedented levels.  The effect of such an atmospheric change poses unknown challenges that range from the manageable to the devastating.  But one thing is for certain: it is a problem that cannot be ignored.  Friedman takes the time to carefully run through the scientific basis for such warming, explaining the historic level of CO₂ in the Earth’s atmosphere – 280 parts per million for the last 10,000 years – and detailing the rapid rise that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution  - as of 2007, 384 parts per million.  The overwhelming majority of atmospheric climate change studies have stated the importance of avoiding the tipping point of 450 to 550 parts per million (at present we are rising at 2 parts per million per year, though that rate is rapidly increasing with the following two factors).
• Flat: The IT revolution has radically changed the rate at which we act and the number of competitors available for any single job.  The invention of the personal computer, the internet, software programming and standardised transmission protocols has led to a technological and geopolitical levelling of the economic playing field.
• Crowded:  The world is facing a population explosion that is not supposed to slow down until we reach close to 9.2 billion in 2050.  The rapid urbanisation of the Earth’s population in the last half century has led to a massive increase in the world’s middle class (though bringing people out of poverty is undoubtedly a good thing, their increased appetite for energy is a global problem).  Take for example the fact that in 1975 there were five "megacities" (population 10 million +) in the world; as of 2015, it is predicted we will have 26.

Consequently, Friedman aptly describes five major problems that now affect every country:

1. Growing demand for ever scarcer energy supplies and natural resources (In 1973, 1980 and 1990 the world faced rocketing oil prices due to supply shocks that were caused by wars and revolutions in the Middle East, however, in 2004, the world experienced the first ever demand led price shock as global demand for oil exceeded supply – obviously we can expect this to occur with increasing regularity should current trends continue).
2. The transfer of wealth to oil-rich countries who are generally led by “Petro-Dictators” (Friedman presents a fascinating study positing the theory that there is an inverse relationship between the global price of oil and the political and economic freedoms of the citizens of petro-states (“The Resource Curse”).  When the price of oil is high leaders are able to artificially inflate their economies and rule with an iron fist (think Putin in Russia and Chavez in Venezuela), whereas when the price of oil is low, leaders must act with more transparency and respect for human rights if they are to forge favourable trade relations.  Furthermore, Friedman uses his vast Middle Eastern political experience to explain how this transfer of wealth fuels radical/terrorist agendas and prevents genuine economic development (OPEC countries exported $600 billion in 2008).
3. Disruptive Climate Change (I will generally leave the effects Climate Change alone as predictive models vary greatly but the majority of consequences are widely known).
4. Energy poverty (countries that are unable to generate and distribute sufficient quantities of electricity are generally unable to develop IT infrastructure and thus face a downward spiral in which they continually fall further behind the innovation curve).
5. Rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss (half of all the world’s tropical and temperate forests lost, 90% of large predator fish extinct and 20% of coral reefs destroyed, etc.)

Friedman paints a dire picture of the environmental, political and economic global landscape in the 21^st century.  Rest assured Friedman offers a panacea: “Code Green.”

As Friedman describes it, Code Green is a revolution, not an evolution.  Obviously this is much easier said than done, but I must compliment the author on the clarity of his vision for the future. Governments and private enterprise must dedicate themselves to creating clean power and energy efficiency systems, conserve natural resources and innovate to merge energy technology with information technology (e.g. investment in the smart grid that will allow individuals to sell power back to the grid).

Code Green is already under way.  Beginning with international efforts such as the UN’s Brundtland Commission report in 1987, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Kyoto Protocol in 2005, the wheels have already been set in motion.  

Yet Friedman provides fresh impetus to what often feels an insurmountable challenge.  With tongue-in-cheek he posits that the answer is simple: REEFIGDCPEERPC<TTCOBLOG! “A renewable energy eco-system for innovating, generating and developing clean power, energy efficiency, resource productivity and conservation [at a price less than] the true cost of burning coal, oil and gas.”

Friedman’s plan would involve the mammoth tasks of taxing dirty fuels and removing subsidies to create price signals that would eventually lead to:

• Doubling the fuel efficiency of over 2 billion cars from 30 mpg to 60 mpg,
• Replacing 1,400 coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants,
• Perfecting and installing CO₂ sequestration technology at all emitting plants,  
• Doubling Nuclear capacity,
• Increasing Wind power by 40 times
• Increasing Solar power by 700 times and,
• Cutting home and office electricity use by 25%.

I’m sure it needs to be done, but I’m not certain it can be done at the requisite speed.  

Inspiringly, Friedman unearths the green shoots of Red China; a country that is now leading the world in solar energy production and one that is on track to have 16% renewable energy capacity by 2020.  Environmentalists may glumly joke that Chairman Mao couldn't swim in Yangtze River anymore, but these are the kinds of encouraging examples that show the tide is turning.  Further examples of the U.S. military using energy efficiency technologies to defeat Al-Qaeda (when powering your air-conditioning and constantly running water around in the 121 degree desert heat, energy savings make your defence budget stretch a lot farther), the green solution is proving it’s worth in many different contexts.

As I stated at the beginning of my review, this book was a real eye-opener for me at the time of reading (2008).  Though it was written in 2008, it is still just as pertinent today and I implore anyone who doesn't consider the problem to be grave enough, or the solution to be exciting enough, to put this book on his or her reading list.  With the global financial crisis, attention has shifted from climate change to more immediate economic relief, however, Friedman provides a poignant reminder that focusing our energy on this challenge is the right thing to do morally and economically. If we start now, we have exactly enough time.

Score: 90/100