Assignment 1

ID5200: Intro to Biomimcry

Aryamaan Singh
CE20B017
Q1
I believe UNSDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production is an umbrella goal which
aims to optimise the lifecycle of every product in use. It not only talks about conscious use
of natural resources to minimise the wastage but also to develop a sustainable supply chain
system for every industry in question.
The final expected impact from this UNSDG is to achieve better quality of life and job,
reduce poverty, provide access to larger market to al the producers while keeping the
environmental load at minimum.
The target and indicator which appeal to me are:
Targets and Indicators

• Target 12.A: Support developing countries' scientific and technological capacity for
sustainable consumption and production
o Indicator 12.A.1: The amount of support to developing countries on research
and development for sustainable consumption and production and
environmentally sound technologies
This target appeals to me because we are living in the age of technological
advancement. Technology is part of every walk of our lives and we must figure out a
way to integrate it properly to have a sustainable lifestyle.
Through technology in waste management, we can achieve complex tasks which
otherwise would be unfeasible. For example, making roads and brick from the plastic
waste, pyrolysis of Multi-Layered plastics (Non-recyclable) to extract plastic oil, a
diesel grade oil hence in turn reducing the load on fossil fuels.
Research and development of new technologies will help us in optimisation of each
step of the supply chain including the wate disposal as well as make developing
countries technologically more independent. I would love to work in the direction of
finding avenues to involve technology and reduce wastage of resources.

• Target 12.B: Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable tourism

o Indicator 12.B: The number of sustainable tourism strategies or policies and
implemented action plans with agreed monitoring and evaluation tools
With increase in per capita income across the world and improvement I India’s GDP
along with upcoming policies, the rich tourism sector of the country will grow even
more by a large amount. With increase in number of tourists, it is important that we
prepare ourselves to sustainably manage this change. It will provide job
opportunities to MSMEs of the country, the transportation sector will boom, water
load, load on forests and management of bio-mass will be additional challenges.
In order to be able to take necessary actions on time to avoid any depletion of
natural resources or to improve the efficiency of current supply chain of handicrafts
industry, we must develop policies and tools to track the relevant KPIs.
 The goal dwells on the management skills of the individuals tackling it and hence it is
of interest to me.

Q2
a) What is the challenge that REGEN addressed?
The need for REGN arose in order to address the load on energy grid during peak hours of
the day which resulted in city wide blackouts with limited resources in hand. They focused
their efforts on the buildings since it accounted for 39% of the US energy use and much
greater usage during peak hours. The solutions existed to optimise the consumption in large
and small building however the solutions for medium sized buildings were not present. They
decided to take up the challenge of optimising the electricity consumption for these medium
sized buildings and ultimately reducing the load on the city electricity grid.

b) What is the solution they came up with?

REGN was created with an idea to address the issue of over payment for electricity due to
inefficient use. They focused their efforts on the medium sized buildings which lacked an
electricity optimisation system either because it was too expensive or too complex to
maintain. They saw an opening in the market in this direction. REGN inspired by the
communication method of the bees, developed the EnviroGrid which allowed all the
appliances in an area to communicate with each other and acted as an on/off system to
optimise their usage hence reducing the consumption of electricity for their client by 15-
30%.
c) What strategy from nature did REGEN emulate?
REGN was inspired by the simple process of communication among bees using pheromones
to perform basic tasks which ultimately contributed towards the survival of entire colony.
Similarly, they created EnviroGrid which observed the usage patterns of the appliance for 2
weeks and then communicated with each other to optimise the overall usage of the
ecosystem to minimise the load on the electricity grid.
d) Which UNSDGs have they addressed, according to you?
According to me REGN addresses UNSDG 7, UNSDG 9, UNSDG 11 and UNSDG 13 because:
o It optimises the energy usage and reduces the load on the grid, hence requirement
of plants to generate electricity reduces.
o It inspires the development of new technologies which add to the existing
infrastructure and make it more sustainable.
e) What are some of ‘Nature’s unifying patterns’ that are apparent in their solution?
Their solution take inspiration from the efficient and simple method of communication
among bees. The bees communicate through pheromones and perform basic tasks
contributing to a larger cause. Similarly, the EnviroGrid allows communication among
appliances and hence optimises the power consumption to minimise the load on electricity
grid to minimum.

Q3
I chose Routific, a route optimisation software for delivery businesses inspired from bees.

Challenge Addressed
A poorly planned route for delivery services has a large carbon footprint. It not only take longer to
complete deliveries but also increases fuel consumption which adds to carbon emission and higher
costs are incurred because of this. In order to make profit, the business must save at every stage of
the supply chain. Delivery system is the main artery for any business to succeed.

Solution

Routific is a route optimising software for delivery fleets. It is based on the “bees algorithm” through
which bees look for food in a fast and efficient way and hence saving up on their energy. It optimises
the delivery routes based on real time challenges like traffic density and road blocks. It takes in the
database of all the drivers and the all the locations of delivery to analyse every possible combination
of driver and drop location and come up with the most optimised path for each driver of the fleet to
minimise the time and fuel consumed. This increases the efficiency of the supply chain substantially
and helps save the company large sums of money.