Bioneers: Ecological Design

Bioneers: Ecological Design

As these videos bring to life, ecological design systems are far more efficient, economical, and humane than current design norms. In place of today’s failed brute-force approaches that attempt to dominate the natural world, these innovators are demonstrating sophisticated ways of designing buildings, vehicles, technologies, cities and social systems to interact harmoniously with living systems - enlivening you with just how advanced the Ecological Design revolution is. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges. Visit Bioneers.org to learn more about our programs, annual conference and local gatherings. Cover image by Gary Greenberg (sandgrains.com)

Episodes

100% Clean Energy for and by the People | Billy Parish

August 3, 2016 • 19 mins
This leading young change-maker turned entrepreneur is showing how, in this generation, we can shift from fossil fuels to a world 100% powered by clean energy, and we can do it in a way that makes all of us richer, healthier and happier. The only way it will happen is if we get involved and take power into our own hands. Solar Mosaic, the company he co-founded, is employing revolutionary crowdfunding techniques to democratize inves...
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The Biomimicry Network Effect | Janine Benyus

August 3, 2016 • 25 mins
The acclaimed biologist, innovation consultant and author Janine Benyus illuminates how the biomimicry community can collaborate with nature on a hot list of challenges that just can’t wait. Invoking leading-edge science, she shows how biological networks can provide a model to spread good ideas far and wide. This speech was given at the 2013 Bioneers Annual Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and...
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Intellectual Ecology, Green Chemistry | John Warner

August 3, 2016 • 21 mins
It’s time to create the green molecular building blocks that make green technology truly clean, from raw materials and production to social justice. World-renowned green chemist John Warner illustrates how we can create a new generation of biomimetic and green molecular building blocks to help us reach the “world we want.” A founder of Green Chemistry, he has published over 200 patents, papers and books. He’s founder, President and...
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Biomimicry: Life’s Operating Manual | Dayna Baumeister

August 3, 2016 • 31 mins
Envision what our world would and could look like if we actually started reading and following the directions contained in “Life’s Operating Manual.” Co-founder with Janine Benyus of the Biomimicry Guild and Biomimicry Institute, Dayna Baumeister provides an eagle’s-eye view of biomimicry breakthroughs using ecological design and nature-inspired technologies that emulate nature’s profound design sophistication. She has worked in th...
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The Nature of Innovation | Jay Harman

August 3, 2016 • 22 mins
The President-CEO of PAX Scientific reveals how scientists and designers are taking cues from nature to find breakthrough solutions. Take sunscreen modeled on hippo sweat. How might we borrow the recipe? It’s time for a fresh look at technology and design, with nature as our mentor. This speech was given at the 2013 Bioneers Annual Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators wit...
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Cosmomimicry: Why the Universe Matters | David McConville

April 26, 2016 • 22 mins
The Buckminster Fuller Institute Board Chair illustrates the geocentric view of the universe as our renewed cosmic model. Earth – our observational center – is also our ecological center. Yet we can embrace systems thinking as far-reaching as the universe and find a restorative path to our future - knowing “the universe we design for is the universe we’re going to get.” This speech was given at the 2013 Bioneers National Conferenc...
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Harmonizing People and Nature: A New Business Model | Gretchen Daily

April 26, 2016 • 28 mins
Leaders around the world are increasingly recognizing ecosystems as natural capital assets that supply life-support services of priceless value. The challenge is to turn this recognition into incentives and institutions that will guide wise investments in natural capital on a large scale. Gretchen Daily illuminates advances being made on three key fronts: the development of new science and technical tools for valuing Nature, such a...
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Restoring Los Angeles | Andy Lipkis

April 26, 2016 • 28 mins
In 1978 the city of Los Angeles was hit by a hundred-year flood. In 1980 it was hit again. The devastation that followed paralleled the effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In this groundbreaking presentation, Andy Lipkis describes the unlikely partnerships that arise in emergency situations and the lessons we can learn from ecology to help overcome the fractured condition of city agencies. When we treat an entire city like an eco...
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Twelve Degrees of Freedom | Greg Watson

April 26, 2016 • 27 mins
Growing up in Cleveland, Watson would notice black ash from the smoldering river raining down on him as he waited for the bus. Industry and government’s failure to address the pollution crisis followed him into his adult life when he learned about Buckminster Fuller’s idea of using nature’s design strategies to leverage energy and create significant positive effects. In state government and the private sector, Watson’s leadership h...
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Living Buildings and a Regenerative World | Jason McLennan

April 26, 2016 • 22 mins
The visionary founder of the Living Building Challenge illuminates the game-changing impacts of the world's most advanced and provocative green building certification program. He chronicles its core principles, its global influence on designers, builders, communities and educational systems, and its manifest progress transforming the interface between human habitats and the natural world into a virtuous cycle. This speech took pla...
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How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World | Paul Stamets

April 26, 2016 • 26 mins
Paul Stamets describes a series of epiphanies around how to shape our world with fungi in ways that are not just sustainable, but regenerative, resourceful and fun. He shares his patented application of mycelium as an alternative to synthetic pesticides; his regenerative Life Boxes that serve as shipping materials until you add water and soil; and his newest invention -- mushroom cultivation centers that convert fungal sugars into ...
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Intelligence in Nature | Jeremy Narby

April 26, 2016 • 25 mins
In this mesmerizing talk, Jeremy Narby shares the findings from his groundbreaking book Intelligence in Nature. He describes his quest around the globe to chronicle how leading-edge scientists are studying intelligence in nature and how nature learns. He uncovers a universal thread of highly intelligent behavior within the natural world, and asks the question: What can humanity learn from nature's economy and knowingness? Weaving t...
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Restoration Writ Large | John Liu

March 22, 2016 • 26 mins
Beijing-based filmmaker John Liu proposes that healthy ecosystem function is a superior measure of economic health, in contrast with the rate at which we produce and consume manufactured goods. Showing stunning footage, Liu chronicles the remarkable restoration of China's denuded Loess Plateau, once the "Garden of Eden" of China. He illustrates how the act of restoring soil fertility restores the hydrological cycle, a process that ...
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Biomimicry: Emulating Life’s Genius and Grace | Janine Benyus

March 22, 2016 • 21 mins
Applying the lens of nature-inspired design, Janine Benyus shares some of nature’s brilliant answers to the world’s most pressing environmental concerns, illustrated by inspiring real-world applications. Her Biomimicry Institute is guiding business transformation – the Next Industrial Revolution – by bringing biomimicry to the design table, and it’s starting to transform how businesses design and manufacture products. A waste-free,...
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Reinventing Fire | Amory Lovins

March 22, 2016 • 33 mins
One of the world's leading energy experts and visionaries, Amory Lovins makes a winning case for powering our future by "reinventing fire," also the title of his 2012 book. Brimming with scientific data and a pithy and dry wit, he demonstrates the practical path away from our fossil fuel based economy. By integrating transportation, buildings, industry and electricity, and combining these with new business strategies, he believes w...
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The Ecological Design Revolution | John Todd

March 22, 2016 • 23 mins
In this lyrical exploration, John Todd shares the essential principles of ecological design and reveals how mimicking nature’s forms and processes can lead to breakthrough design. He reveals the design secrets behind his award-winning eco-industrial park in Burlington, Vermont, and his strategies to clean up bodies of water from the marshes around Lake Champlain to the canals of Venice and South China. The main allies in his natura...
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Designing the Next Golden Age | Jay Harman

March 17, 2016 • 14 mins
Naturalist, inventor and entrepreneur Jay Harman shows how nature's favorite form, the spiral, is ubiquitous in nature: from the shape of galaxies to the flow of blood in our veins, how air moves through our lungs, and plants and flowers unfold. Movement wants to follow the path of least resistance. He shows how the spiral correlates with the fabled Golden Mean and the Fibonacci sequence, the mathematical representation of aestheti...
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