Biomimicry comes to Europe.

By Anneke Campbell

As a lover of Bioneers and of my Dutch family, I traveled to The Netherlands to engage my former career of midwife and help my niece have her baby due on the exact date of the first European conference. This was an exciting prospect, but as it turned out, my niece delivered early, and I got to participate fully in the three day event in Zeist. Even so, there were many workshops I did not get to attend and many people I did not get to meet, so this narrative reflects my personal experiences and is not intended to review the conference as a whole.

An opening dinner at Amerongen Castle welcomed participants with introductions by founders Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons, and opening remarks by among others, Tineke Huizinga-Heringa, the Dutch Minister of the Environment, Public Space and Urban Planning. It was refreshing to hear a high up government official question the notion of economic growth, declaring that the growth through consumption model needs to be replaced by sustainable development. The next speaker to welcome the attendees was Herman Wijffels, former RABO bank president and Dutch representative to World Bank, current co-chair of World-Connectors. In response to Nina’s comments about women’s leadership, he unexpectedly talked about how we will not meet our sustainability challenges planet wide without addressing the imbalance between the masculine and feminine principles and women gaining equal power.

The European Bioneers differed from the Marin conference in a focus on biomimicry and also by being by invitation only. Bioneers partner, Marcello Palazzi, along with Findhorn partner Daniel Wahl, had gathered together some 280 movers and shakers in European government and business as well as from non-profits and universities. As Kenny acknowledged, this was something of an experiment and that the nature of the participants testified to the ways that the Europeans are ahead of us in the United States. On the other hand, the Americans, maybe because there is less government support, have far greater entrepreneurial and philanthropic investment in innovation. The mix was fertile and fascinating: the plenaries of Bioneers favorites Janine Benyus and Jay Harman and Paul Stamets were interspersed with those of Peter Blom, director of the first “green” bank, Triodos, Volkert Engelsman, leading international distributor of organic fair trade foods, Niall Dunne, managing director of the global PR firm Saatchi and Saatchi, and Prince Carlos, a member of the Dutch Royal Family.

The Bioneers magic worked. Just as in Marin County and through the beaming sites, here in Zeist, Europeans from many countries were inspired as they learned of the beautiful and elegant solutions based on nature’s design already present to solve today’s seemingly insurmountable problems. Willemijn Kemp, director of the sustainable consultant agency “Vital Interest”, expressed the sentiment of many when she said in one of the final speeches, that she had dreaded attending another conference of talk and more talk about our depressing environmental challenges, but soon found herself not only feeling inspired, but also experiencing a context of connectedness and love. This was reiterated a number of times to me personally, among others by the Dutch youth representative to the UN, by the founder of a popular design company, by a research leader in tax policy,  and in the speech of an enthusiastic Prince Carlos, who said how important this emphasis on solutions is and that it’s too easy for the Dutch to get into saying it’s too late. He was most excited by Janine’s idea that from now on in every enterprise, bring a biologist to the first meeting. 

Janine Benyus, founder of the Biomimicry movement, acknowledged, in this land of windmills, that Europeans have been practicing mimicking nature’s shape, function and processes for quite a while. An example I found particularly enticing: She talked about how people designing windmills are now learning the use of subtle energy streams by studying how a school of fish through their placement in relation to each other, use each others motion to lessen the individual energy needed to propel themselves through water. If we build a wind farm by placing the windmills in the same relation that they magnify each others energy, they would need far less space to produce more of this vital substance. Biomimics are beginning to look at how this idea of magnification of energy based on nature’s way can be applied to human systems and this became an overall theme of the conference, relating to a theme that has reverberated at Marin these past few year as well, which is the urgent need to upscale the solutions fast and widely.

So it was no accident that the next plenary focused on financial investment in solutions. Peter Blom is Chair of Triodos Bank, the first Dutch bank with a social and environmentally responsible mission. While the global banking sector has crashed, Triodos has a robust balance sheet, was voted as the world’s Sustainable Bank of the year in 2009 by the Financial Times and IFC, a member of the World Bank. Blom reported that Triodos is growing at 40% a year. Tellingly, Triodos is owned by the General Anthroposophical Society, the nonprofit international foundation dedicated to Rudolph Steiner’s legacy, which serves as trustee to uphold the mission. Blom spoke of money as a man made artifact that would be improved by imitating water and its flow, because money isn’t recycling right now. He acknowledged that the financial sector has gotten unstuck from the real economy, then posed the question: how do we move beyond the blaming of the banks to finance supporting good development like those presented by Jay Harman and Janine Benyus? How do we get banks to finance change aligned with our values? Peter Blom knows from his own experience that there are many people in banks who want to make a difference, and ended by saying that for bank culture to change from investing in short term profit to long term values, it’s the customers who must push banks in that direction. If each of us who uses a bank would use that power, collectively we can do much to accelerate change.

The following day, architect Thomas Rau would pick up this theme, while discussing his buildings that are either CO2 neutral or even energy-producing. He would boldly state: There is no energy problem; that is a misnomer. There is plenty of energy, so really it’s just what people want. When we value other things more than profit, our choices and then our economy will reflect that.

This is a salient point, as we would learn a little later from Bryony Schwan, executive director of the Biomimicry Institute, who explained that in spite of all the interest in their online courses and programs world wide, and in spite of all the people coming to them for information, financial investment is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of dollars invested in any number of less promising and more harmful technologies.

This question of what strategies we can learn from the natural world that would help us grow quickly and accelerate change was a theme I would hear repeated in a number of ways. Alejandro Litovsky is the director of the “pathways to scale" program of the VOLANS organization, which works with social innovators, business, investors and policy makers to create new forms to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable economy. His plenary examined the question of how do we move from what he calls the “eureka moment” of insight and innovation to affecting the decision makers and the economy overall. He identified 5 stages in this process: first the emergence of new ideas, the second stage of experimentation and innovation, third is the building of enterprises and organizations that support the innovation and can sustain themselves, the fourth stage is about building the infrastructures needed to upscale the changes and in the fifth stage is changing the system as a whole. We in the sustainability movement are mostly operating in stages 2 and 3 and he sees infrastructure as the next crucial step to address --social, institutional and market infrastructures.

One unlikely speaker, Niall Dunne, managing director of Saatchi and Saatchi, one of the largest PR firms internationally, didn’t mince his words:

“As the driver of consumption, my industry (advertising) is the foot on the pedal of the problem.” Advertising sells us that consumption means happiness. For change to happen, we need a new definition of affluence, which is happiness itself. He believes that the power of the brand can not be overlooked in marketing sustainable products and services, and that advertising can be used to mobilize a movement based on this change in values and a higher purpose, because most everyone wants to feel part of something larger and more meaningful. He gave as an example how Google is the largest user of electricity on planet, and in order to save their brand, has committed to using 100 percent renewable energy and to the investment it takes for that to occur.

Volkert Engelsman, managing director of the leading distributor of organic fair trade products worldwide, discussed how his company EOSTA markets products that are climate neutral, fair trade, air, soil, water and animal friendly, with compostable packaging etc. In response to the overarching question of how to scale up these innovative best practices, he spoke of aiming at “awareness elites”: 10 to 20 percent of consumers who want organic and are “cultural creatives” because “that’s where the market wants to go.” Understanding how humans make their choices is part of the equation.

A workshop I found educational and encouraging was entitled: “Food, Culture, Health and Ecology.” In it were participants from The Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Croatia, Turkey and the USA, who also represented work being done in many more countries, including some developing nations. Darko Znaor told of the study he had conducted of the impacts of going one hundred percent organic in Croatia – on all factors, on the environment, on labor, on trade, transport and climate. The numbers were very positive. Among them, the energy use and environmental costs were 50 percent of that of non-organic. Even employment would improve by 7 to 10 percent. That things can move beyond the good idea phase to planning for dealing with impacts, was inspiring for those of us still spending our energies convincing people that organic agriculture is a good idea. Impact studies are a sign people are getting serious, and the discussion focused on practices in scaling up organics in farming and business and marketing. Karel Bolkmans, head of production and R&D manager of a world leading company dealing in biological pest control, was excited to connect with mycologist entrepreneur Paul Stamets and learn about the possibilities of fungi in dealing with common pests. The group also discussed hydroponics and combinations of techniques that were not entirely organic. Things got really lively when participant Gijs Kuneman, who directs the Centre for Agriculture and the Environment, chided a few of the participants for making it an either/or proposition. He spoke forcefully of intensifying complexity rather than duality, of the need to work out approaches without making the farmers who don’t grow organic into the enemy but rather find ways to engage everyone and work together.

This brought me back to what makes Bioneers so unique and valuable: the emphasis on networking and coalition building and the inclusion of many different domains in one tapestry, including social justice and how to connect across differences. Lest I give the impression that this European version was only about innovating and upscaling technologies, there were also plenaries on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). In this area, the Americas are far ahead, and it’s something Bioneers has emphasized through its evolution as necessary in helping us navigate the turbulent waters ahead. The plenaries of Melissa Nelson, educator and activist of the Turtle Mountain band of the Chippewa, and Dennis Martinez, founder of the Indigenous Peoples Restoration Network, were well-received. Europe has long harbored a romantic interest in Native American culture, but it’s only beginning to discover its own indigenous cultures, let alone start looking to them for wisdom or clues for help in navigating these times.

Nina Simon’s Women’s Leadership panel similarly had a somewhat different feeling than it does in Marin. While people listened with interest, there seemed an age divide in relation to the notion that women need to restore the feminine to leadership culture. I believe this may be due to the fact that European social structure is more supportive of women, with financial support, with day care and paid maternity leave and a greater acceptance of part time work for both parents. Although the younger leaders on the panel did not identify so much with women’s struggles, their stories seemed to naturally include the values of collaboration, listening, connecting across differences, process orientation and relational intelligence, that are characteristics of a more balanced style of leadership. One member of the audience spoke for many when she stood up and said things will change when more women are in positions of power who know it’s all about love. For me this reinforced what happened on the first morning at the “women’s circle” where many of us had experienced a profound sense of connection that didn’t need words.

Two American plenary speakers spoke with me about their experiences. Greg Watson, Bioneers Board member, is currently Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Technology for Massachussetts and leading the state’s Off shore Wind Initiative. He treated the participants to an inspirational talk about Bucky Fuller, who was his mentor and introduced him to biomimicry. At the conference he acquired new perspectives on topics and problems that he’s been trying to solve and expanded his network: “One thing that struck me was that our European colleagues seem to place a greater emphasis on process and vehicles for change as opposed to actual technologies – there was lots of focus on networks, and economic systems and decision making processes.”

TreePeople's founder and president Andy Lipkis also found the conference particularly useful in terms of building coalitions, not only with new European partners, but also with his fellow plenary speakers from the USA. He discovered that he and Janine Benyus have been thinking along similar lines in terms of Biomomicry for cities. Andy said: “People at all levels seem to be awakening to the need for the  integrated systems approach I’ve been developing at TreePeople in Los Angeles and I’ve had inquiries from interested parties in The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, the UK and Spain about collaborating with me in their home regions.” He also believes that resources from Europe may well help the acceleration of this process through donors, funders, foundations and governments.