Translating Biomimicry Daily 4 Dimensions (4Cs)
Structured collaborative session about transformative ideas to apply Biomimicry in everyday life.
Overview
Biomimicry is a lens to solutions. An approach to innovation that enables us to turn into nature geniuses that already exist, to strategies that have been fine-tuned for 3.8 billion years, to proven experience and innovation in a way that is attuned to the natural laws that govern us.
The term "biomimicry" comes from the Greek words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate. These principles are everywhere, once you see them you can find the patterns all around.
This collaborative session is aimed to create a repository of practices that translate Biomimicry principles into everyday life within the context of the participants. The session will use a version of the 1-2-4-all liberating structure where participants will discuss each principle and build upon each other's ideas in sub-groups before gathering key highlights. The structure includes and extension inspired by the session of Doughnut Economics for Climate Risks and Shocks. The goal is to create a repository that can be revisited and updated in the future.
Why use it?
1. Link Biomimicry to daily decisions and interventions
2. Discover which contexts can help you achieve different objectives
3. Learn about what it means to apply the ethos in all you do
Who is it for?
Educators, policymakers, consultants, trainers, community leaders, household members…
For anyone looking for constructive, practical and impactful steps we can take in our own lives, across multiple contexts; from Civic, Commerce, Commons, to tu Casa.
How long does it take?
Highly dependent on the size of the group and available time.
Facilitators can help craft structure and length by what's needed.
As a rough guide 2-4h.
How many people is it for?
Multiple of 4 works best.
Size group can be adapted.
Ideal numbers within 16 - 100
Links
Click here to review the Story
Click here to view the board sample of Biomimicry into 4Cs
Click here to access the Biomimicry principles
Click here for the past event of Doughnut Economics for Climate Risks and Shocks
Click here to learn about the organisation in action
Background
Our current ecological and socio-economic challenges are posing significant threats to the long-term stability and resilience of our society. Despite the widespread recognition of these issues, tangible impacts from efforts to address them are falling short. To create a safe and just space for humanity (and beyond!), we must attune ourselves to the laws of nature and shift our paradigms to prioritize creating conditions that are conducive to life. This requires designing and living in harmony with the natural world, rather than exploiting it. Only through cultivating cooperative relationships to collective action and political will can we hope to achieve a regenerative and just future for all.
Biomimicry seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature's patterns and strategies. It involves studying how nature solves problems and adapting those solutions to human designs and systems. By looking to nature for inspiration, biomimicry aims to create more efficient, sustainable, and resilient solutions that are in harmony with the natural world.
Some existing product examples of biomimicry include designing materials that mimic the strength and flexibility of spider silk, creating wind turbines that mimic the movements of humpback whale fins, and developing water filtration systems that mimic the filtration processes of plant roots.
This session aims to fill the gap from theoretical agreement on the existence and value of these patterns to tangible action in everyday life. What happens to people in contexts? For that, the tool includes a quadrant** to account for input and outputs from relationships to the 4Cs:
- Civil (State)
- Commerce (Market)
- Casa (Household)
- Commons (shared resources)
The framework provides a structure to dive deep from the ethos to the principles to strategies to daily decisions and interventions. Whilst reenergising the participants and having fun! The session aims to help participants comprehend what daily context and instruments are suitable to infuse transformative actions and, in doing so, contribute to regenerative objectives.
**Extension inspired by the session of Doughnut Economics for Climate Risks and Shocks (https://doughnuteconomics.org/events/229)
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Member
Nadia NV
London
Quietly revolting for a thriving world. Keen to learn more and make connections.
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Member
Julio glatt
Brasilia, Brasil
Designer, artist, and Biomimicry professional. In love with nature and eager to solve problems. Working at NOUS Ecossistema merging strategy, communication, art, nature-inspired methodologies, and design. NOUS is one of the companies that have the most potential to change some status quo in design and communication companies in Brazil and helping it to grow and establish itself is a personal and professional goal. It means leveraging biomimicry opportunities in Brazil and for me also.
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Member
Sanjiv Shrivastava
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Member
Lena Rainer
Stockholm
People are beginning to understand the movement of change. As Head of Sweden´s Energy Communites NGO, I want to bring these people together. We ensure that initiators of Energy Communities get access to the technology solutions needed and match models to the various needs that are emerging in energy communities. In this way, new spaces are created for collaboration and collective action. In that is our opportunity.
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Member
Irene Portelli
Cairns, Queensland, Australia
I am the Chairperson of Circular Economy FNQ, where we are building a Transition Accelerator Lab for circular economy solutions in regional and remote Australia. Through Shopping Centres in Homework Centres as the kids are the people who inherit and run what we are building. Our purpose is to create a high-trust, collaborative environment linking schools, universities, industry, First Nations knowledge holders, and community, to accelerate practical solutions for regenerative agriculture, decarbonised re-manufacturing, and cost-of-living resilience in hubs through third places - like Shopping Centres, CWA halls and Libraries. At the core of our work are three interconnected systems projects: Environmental systemWe are advancing biogenic iron dust, BID, research and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) especially in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current as part of an Ocean Treaty pathway, recognising phytoplankton as a critical lever in climate regulation. This work connects Desert communities with Ocean communities and breaks down barriers of difference. Where I reside within the World Heritage “sandwich” — the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest — sustainable mining of BID through science-led Citizen Science camps and extra-curricular programs aligning with globally aligned ocean governance. exOIS. Social systemUsing the new currencies toolkit, we design mechanisms that ensure circular economy profits and extended life-cycle practices actively reduce the cost of living, support minimum income security, and keep value circulating locally. SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) are non-negotiable foundations of this work, ensuring disadvantaged communities—especially women and young people—are not excluded from the emerging circular industrial economy. Built & industrial systemWe focus on demand reduction first, through passive housing, tiny homes, housed through caravan-park pathways that reduce energy draw and utility costs. This is complemented by open-source micro-factories delivering waste-to-energy and re-manufacturing solutions designed specifically for regional conditions. Across all projects, we are measuring what Kate Raworth describes as the regional “layer cake”—social foundations and ecological ceilings—because Far North Queensland is exceptionally rich in natural capital. We work closely with First Nations peoples, the planet’s original scientists and engineers, recognising that their knowledge systems are essential to understanding and stewarding complex living systems. I am also the founder of We Made It Better for the Planet Pty Ltd, which delivers a waste to energy Microfactory in an Open Source delivery model to achieve SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) in full across the regions we expand into. Fifty percent of profits are reinvested into SDG10 Reduced Inequalities and SDG5 Gender Equality and SDG14 - Ocean Treaty & Environmental Science extra-curricular Camps and Homework Centres. All of this work is being the foundation for my Master’s in Data Science thesis, reporting via feedback loops of the application of system thinking using the DEAL framework, the Sustainable Development Goals, and ISO 59000-aligned ESG metrics, including Blue Carbon-credit methodologies linked to phytoplankton research through Ocean Pastures in the Global South -driving climate regulation—an approach to climate action widely supported by leaders such as Sir David Attenborough.
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Member
Birte Dohlen
Berlin, Deutschland
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Member
Marian Turniawan
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
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Member
Allen Gunderson
Victoria, BC Canada
A regenerative business focused high school educator in Victoria, BC Canada. I'm currently developing a life affirming learning platform blending methodologies from Waters Center for Systems Thinking, Korda Institute for Teaching, eduScrum, B Academics, Systems Dynamics Society, Doughnut Economics, and r3.0 that disrupts the status quo by building a resilient, equitable, and regenerative economy through real complex experiential youth led projects creating community change.
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