SIJ Feature JUN E 2 0 0 6

Natural
selection
‘Biomimicry’ pioneer
Janine Benyus shows
business that waste is a
terrible thing to mind
BY C ELESTE LE C OMPTE

I
t’s redwing blackbird season in Montana,
and Janine Benyus is weeding her
flowerbeds. In the background, showy
male birds are courting returning females
with their distinctive, plaintive trill. Over
the phone line, the bird calls sound like the puls-
ing of insects on a hot summer’s evening.
“It’s like playing pool,” Benyus is saying.
“Really good pool players have a good leave. They
really care about where they’re leaving the cue ball
for the next player. Natural systems have done
that too.”
The lesson that she’s trying to explain has to
do with waste. The business community, she says,
has to learn to have a good “leave” on the table at
the end of the day. In healthy ecosystems, “you
don’t see a lot of nutrients leaking away,” Benyus
says. Waste products in one part of the system are
brought back in at another point in the system,
creating relationships between organisms.
Industry is at a point where it can no longer
afford to let the knowledge and resources of the
natural world leak away, says Benyus. In her 1997
book, “Biomimicry: Innovation inspired by
nature,” Benyus detailed an emerging methodolo-
Jennifer Brinkman

gy of borrowing from biology’s blueprints. The

allure of biomimicry shimmers in the book’s
pages, tantalizing readers with promises of a
future in which abundant energy is provided by

14 Sustainable Industries Journal

JUN E 2 0 0 6

solar cells that gather and store energy as effi-

ciently as leaves; of cities filled with cleverly
curved buildings constructed of lighter, stronger,
Branding Novomer LLC
www.novomer.com
Currently, most of the carbon
and more flexible bone-like materials; and of com-
puters that learn processing power from our biology in plastics comes from
petroleum products, but

Courtesy VInventa
human brains. In April, Janine Benyus spoke Novomer has developed a
Such technologies haven’t burst onto the mar- to a group in Portland about process that allows researchers
ketplace, radically transforming our everyday lives some of the technologies being to make plastics with carbon
in the decade that has passed since the book’s developed by biomimics dioxide and biologically derived
publication. Biomimics are still a fledgling where the beetle lives, it compounds. The plastics show
around the globe. A handful of
species, testing their wings in university laborato- extends its wings away from its promise for use in medical
the technologies have been
ries and federal military research. body, and the peculiar set of devices and thin-film
embraced by private
In reality, biomimicry has emerged more grad- bumps on its surfaces packaging for food, electronics
companies that are now
ually, primarily in small victories won at the inter- encourages the water to and pharmaceuticals.
seeking to commercialize their
section of modern science and current manufac- condense and roll down to the
products. Some of the seven
turing practices. insect’s mouth. The material Biosignal
examples below are in the early
has been talked about as a way www.biosignal.com.au
stages of research and
to supply water in refugee
WWND: What would nature do? development while others are
already succeeding in the
camps, and as a way to
Biosignal produces protective
coatings that discourage
In theory, biomimicry is simple. Nature has improve the efficiency of bacterial growth — without
marketplace.
been around solving problems for thousands of heating, ventilation and air killing the bacteria. The
millennia. The plants and animals that survive conditioning systems.
Sto
today have successfully adapted to their place and www.sto.co.uk
solved their problems over time. If we can exam- Baleen Filters
Lotus leaves have a remarkable
ine their successes and adapt them to our own www.baleenfilters.com
ability to shed water and
needs, biomimicry backers say, we’ll be better off. Like its name implies, Baleen
whatever dirt, mud or bacteria
However, in practice, biomimicry proves Filters found inspiration in the
is in its path. The surface of

Courtesy NOAA
slightly more challenging. Bringing a successful baleen whales use to separate
the leaves, which repels water
biomimetic product to market requires a unique krill from ocean water while
drops with both chemistry and
combination of biological expertise and business feeding. Whales scoop up
savvy. mouthfuls of water then force company discovered that red
Biomimicry is, at its root, a research methodol- water out through the baleen. algae uses natural chemicals
ogy, Benyus points out. “If you really want to real- Krill are trapped in the spiny called “furanones” to keep
ize the potential of biomimicry as a sustainability structures and eaten. Baleen their surfaces clean. Furanones
tool, you have to go through an iterative process Filters uses a similar technique “jam” bacteria signal systems
to separate solids from
Courtesy BASF

with the organism [you’re modeling],” she says. that encourage multiple
That requires asking at every step along the way, wastewater, primarily in the organisms to land on one
“How would nature do this?” food processing and wine surface. The coatings aren’t
Answering that question means companies industries. commercialized yet, but
shape, was successfully copied
need access to a particular type of high-level by a research team at Bonn Biosignal is working on
biological knowledge, says Benyus. “You have to Nike coatings for contact lenses,
University. German coating
be the kind of biologist that’s pretty rare these www.nike.com medical implants and marine
manufacturer Sto uses this
days,” she said. “You need a broad knowledge of Nike includes biomimicry in its surfaces.
“lotus effect” in its Lotusan
the taxa; I call it amoeba-through-zebra design principles. The
Color exterior paint for
knowledge. A biologist who has studied one gene company’s most successful MR3 Systems
buildings. The company claims
for their entire career may be stumped by that.” application to date is its www.mr3systems.com
building surfaces stay clean
Benyus says she hopes that, as biomimicry Sphere React lines of clothing. MR3 Systems, Inc. creates
and dry, preventing the growth
gains momentum, the number of jobs for Modeled after the way nature filters that help glean tiny
of mosses and molds.
organismal and ecosystem biologists will multiply. regulates moisture — in the amounts of metals from
For now, however, many companies seem to find skin of reptiles, on the surface wastewater streams. The
QinetiQ/Inventa
it too difficult to create positions for full-time, of leaves, with birds’ feathers technology models the way
www.qinetiq.com
design-oriented biologists. Instead, they are — the materials changes with that microbes use specific
www.inventapartners.ltd.uk
looking outside their walls for expertise. conditions to let sweat organic molecules to scavenge
Inventa Partners and QinetiQ
Benyus responded to this need by founding evaporate (and heat dissipate) metals — from nickel and
developed a material that
the Biomimicry Guild. Through the guild, Benyus more easily. The React fabrics copper to sulfer arsenic and
harvests water out of vapor in
and her colleagues work with companies as change shape in response to chloride — from their
the air. The fabric mimics the
consultants to help fold biological knowledge into moisture, curling and buckling, surroundings. MR3 licenses its
surface of the Namibian desert
business applications. Benyus says she and her either to lift off skin, to open technolgoy for use in a range
beetle’s wings. When fog rolls
team of Biologists at the Design Table push its mesh, or to repel rain. of industrial applications.
through the desert environment
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PAG E

Sustainable Industries Journal 15

SIJ Feature
companies to use biomimicry as a methodology at
every step of the way, from product design
through manufacturing, shipping and delivery, to
end-of-life disposal.
One company that embraced the guild’s help
early on was Nike (NYSE: NKE). Shortly after
“Biomimicry” was released, the company collabo-
rated with Benyus’ guild to bring a “biologist in
residence” on staff. David Hammond joined the
Nike design team for about six months, learning
about the company’s specific challenges and
investigating natural models for solving these
problems. Hammond’s research insights haven’t
left the company’s Beaverton campus along with
him, however. The “Biologist’s Notebook,” a sum-
mary of his research for the team, is available to
designers in Nike’s in-house design library.
For Nike, a brief infusion of knowledge has
been a valuable start down the path of nature-
inspired design. “That inspiration is brought back
into the business... and you have a different angle
to look at things,” says Shelley Zimmer, senior
manager for the Nike Considered team.
Benyus admits she’s surprised there have been
no other commercial start-ups acting as consult-
ants that she’s aware of. The guild now counts
close to 60 organizations — from Nike to General
Electric (NYSE: GE) to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency to more than a dozen universi-
ties — among those asking for advice on how to
bring biological insights to their work.
“I think that in some ways it’s easier to use the
in-house approach, because when we’ve
conducted our own research, its something we’re
proud of — we’re more excited to see the result in
product,” says Zimmer. “But on the other hand,
some of the expertise we can find elsewhere is
helpful. ...There’s someone who spends all day
everyday thinking about how biomimicry offers
us possible solutions.”
That idea — leveraging outside expertise — is
another model that seems to be gaining currency,
through commercial licensing of biomimetic
technologies.
License to build
Biomimicry happens in two ways, says Kasey
Arnold-Ince, director of communications for PAX
Scientific. Either “companies have a problem and
a very large encyclopedia of nature’s patents, if
you will, to look through, or someone comes
upon a solution and now needs to figure out who
would most benefit from it. How do you line up
the benefit with the need?”
That’s a challenge the San Rafael, Calif.,
company set out to answer.
The company’s founder and CEO, Jayden
Harman, got interested in how nature moved
fluids while working as a naturalist with the
16 Sustainable Industries Journal
Australian Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.
What he found, over and over, was the peculiar
shape known as the logarithmic or “golden”
spiral. Hurricanes and nautilus shells use the
same mathematical pattern of arcs efficiently to
move fluids and Harman realized technology
could do the same [see “PAX Scientific goes with
the flow,” SIJ, March 2005].
So-called fluid handling technologies are used
in a wide array of applications, primarily in the
form of fans — fans to draw heat from a
computer’s processor, to draw smoke from a hot
pan on the stove, to create power from steam, to
push a boat through the water. Harman’s
technology claims to do these and other things
astonishingly well. In air-handling applications,
PAX Scientific says its technology uses 50 percent
less energy and is 75 percent quieter than
competing products. The U.S. Patent Office has
issued two patents to Harman for the technology,
and published three other applications. PAX
Scientific now holds more than a dozen patents in
countries throughout the industrialized world,
according to Arnold-Ince.
“Biomimicry is just
one of the tools companies
can use to have a more
robust innovation process.”
Janine Benyus
Traditionally, companies that invent products
use patents as a way to protect their innovation.
By owning the rights to a particular way of doing
something, companies prevent their competitors
from occupying precisely the same niche.
But Harman didn’t form a company to
manufacture any high-potential fans. Instead, in
1999, he patented the core technology, formed
PAX Scientific, and began pursuing opportunities
to license — and sublicense — applications of the
technology to other companies with
manufacturing capacity and expertise.
“I will sell you the idea,” Arnold-Ince explains.
“I will license you the ability to use this solution.
I’ll customize it, shape it, work with your people.
You will license it from me and pay me a royalty
on every product we sell.”
The licensing arrangement allows PAX
Scientific to stay focused on its area of expertise
and pursue other applications of its technology,
says Arnold-Ince. By focusing on research and
development, the company says it can “realize the
potential” of its technology.
According to West Coast law firm Blakely
Sokoloff Taylor & Zaffman, similar changes in
patent uses are happening across all technology
JUN E 2 0 0 6
sectors — not just in areas related to biomimicry.
Rather than using patents to defend their turf,
companies are using patents “offensively,” as well.
“We’re constantly doing R&D, and every so
often something spins off for commercializing,”
Arnold-Ince says. “We’re spending a lot of time
and focus on, How can we know as much as
possible about the streamline geometry? Then we
can go, Ah, yes, we understand this so well, we
can make this a good match.”
PaxFan and PaxIT are the company’s two
offshoots responsible for matchmaking. With
sustainability entrepreneur-author Paul Hawken
as their CEO and boards that include Janine
Benyus, the two companies have begun to secure
clients for their technologies. No products have
been released, but Broan-NuTone, which earned
$350 million in revenues for 2005, is reportedly
set to launch a new line of kitchen and bathroom
fans this summer.
The companies won’t disclose financial infor-
mation, but Arnold-Ince says PAX Scientific, as
well as Hawken’s PaxFan and PaxIT, are “doing
very well.” Licensing, she says, gives PAX the
flexibility to price the use of their technology
according to the benefits gained by the licensee.
“In one case, it may really reduce the size of
the motor,” she says. “In another case, it’s more
quiet, and that makes them competitive. So it
really depends. You do it on a case-by-case basis.
That’s the delicate balance of licensing.”
Arnold-Ince says she believes licensing is a
good fit for many of the inventors who are discov-
ering useful applications through biomimicry.
Researchers and inventors who are tapped into a
particular set of biological knowledge aren’t likely
to be the best manufacturers, she points out.
“You have to bring together the client who has
the know-how in the industry and the person with
the biomimetic solution who has a lot of know-
how in a specific area,” she says. “I think with
biomimicry there’s going to be a lot of that.
They’re not going to go into manufacturing.”
But for companies already on the manufactur-
ing side, licensing has its appeal as well.
Mimicking sea mussels
“I think companies understand that we’re
moving into a period when one of the real value
propositions is good design — not just aesthetic,
but ‘works-well’ good design — and that to
survive as a company, you have to not just
espouse innovation but have a really robust
innovation process,” Benyus says. “Biomimicry is
just one of the tools companies can use to have a
more robust innovation process.”
Phil Guay, director of marketing and strategic
planning for Columbia Forest Products, agrees.
“That’s really the start of the story: our
JUN E 2 0 0 6
From the sea to the job site: Columbia Forest Products helped develop a formaldehyde-free plywood adhesive modeled after the protein structure that helps mussels cling to wet, rocky coastlines.
commitment to innovation,” he says.
Columbia Forest Products is North America’s
largest manufacturer of decorative hardwood
plywood and veneers, and it also produces
hardwood flooring and laminated wood products.
But the biggest part of the company’s business is
in hardwood plywood. The Portland-based
company produces roughly 400 million square
feet of hardwood plywood each year — about
$450 million worth, according to the company.
When Columbia’s OEM (original equipment
manufacturers) customers began to express
concerns about formaldehyde used in
manufacturing hardwood plywood, the company
began looking for solutions, Guay says. “It’s not
like people have been beating our door down
saying, ‘Take formaldehyde out.’ But it’s an issue
we knew we should be working on.”
Hardwood plywood is made by binding
together thin slices of wood with an adhesive. For
most interior plywoods, urea formaldehyde-based
adhesives are the sticky stuff of choice, because
they’re waterproof and durable. Unfortunately,
they also release volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) into the air during manufacturing,
transportation, and in their final location,
impacting indoor air quality for the end user.
In 2002, Steve Pung, then-director of technol-
ogy for Columbia Forest Products, attended the
Forest Products Society Meeting in Seattle, where
he heard a presentation by Kaichang Li, a forestry
school professor at Oregon State University.
Li presented a paper on the potential to develop
a non-formaldehyde-based adhesive by modeling
the protein structure that helps sea mussels cling
to wet, rocky coastlines. Pung was intrigued.
“The other folks in the room were adhesive
manufacturers, so it wasn’t necessarily in their
best interest, but we’ve been looking for a
formaldehyde-free alternative for years” he recalls.
Bert Nelson
“There was nobody else in our industry in that
meeting.”
After the session, he approached Li about
developing his research further with Columbia’s
support. “He was looking for funding that he
could use to take this research to another level,”
Pung says.
Columbia Forest Products partnered with the
paper technologies division of Hercules Inc.
(NYSE:HPC), a chemical company, to fund the
research. Like PAX Scientific, Li and his team
worked with the companies to fine tune the
research to their needs — improving water-
proofing, speeding up drying time for high-speed
manufacturing, and keeping down cost.
Oregon State University now owns three
patents on the technology, and it licenses them to
Hercules and Columbia Forest Products. The
companies get access to the technology, and
Oregon State University receives royalties from
the sale of products using the glue, known as
PureBond.
The company launched its first commercial
product based on the mussel-mimicking adhesive
in April 2005. One year later, Guay says the
company is on target to use PureBond as the
adhesive in its entire hardwood plywood line. So
far, the products have been doing moderately well.
“I think we’re doing better than we would have
been doing,” is Guay’s cautious estimation.
By allowing other companies to own the
research and licensing the results, Columbia’s
team says it can focus its internal efforts on
finding ways to expand the uses for PureBond.
Currently, the company is pursuing relationships
with some international wood product
manufacturers to find new applications, such as
particleboard, for PureBond.
“This is a unique disruptive technology that’s
going to change our industry,” Guay says.
Courtesy Columbia Forest Products
Columbia Forest Products’ experience points to
ways in which biomimicry, in even seemingly-
small applications, can have long-ranging impacts.
PureBond’s soy-based chemistry eliminates as
much as 95 percent of the VOCs released by the
company’s urea-formaldehyde hardwood plywood
mills, Guay says. Considering that about 1 million
metric tons of urea formaldehyde resins are
produced annually, according to a 1996 report
from U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest
Service, an industry-wide alternative could have
big environmental benefits.
Stricter air emissions regulations in Europe
and Asia, as well as the growing prominence of
the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED
(Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design)
certification, have continued to drive the wood
products market away from formaldehyde-based
adhesives. Columbia has become an advocate for
stricter regulation in the United States as well.
The California Air Resources Board is set to
make a decision about indoor air quality
regulations later this year, and Columbia is
actively supporting formaldehyde restrictions.
While the company acknowledges that it stands to
gain from regulatory action, Columbia says it
doubts PureBond will provide more than a two-
year advantage.
“We don’t consider ourselves owners of
innovation,” Guay says. “The natural world is
where you’ll see the next great moves.”
That kind of thinking is what Janine Benyus
likes to see.
An encounter with biomimicry, Benyus says,
has the potential to open up new appreciation for
the natural world. “If people understand how
amazing nature is, it becomes untenable to watch
the planet slip away.” ●
Contact Celeste LeCompte at celeste@celilo.net.
Sustainable Industries Journal 17