At a recent company awayday, staff from our newly merged sustainability consultancies (Anthesis and Best Foot Forward) trekked off to the countryside near our Oxford office and tried some bushcraft. I thoroughly recommend it; not only as a fun day out and a team bonding experience, but as a mean of re-connecting with nature. Crouching around a fire in the middle of a wood provides a perspective on sustainability very different from when one is hunched over a computer in the middle of an office. And scavenging for wild food gives one a whole new angle on agricultural supply chains. Discussions of sustainability strategies and solutions also take on a very different quality; a richness and energy pervades the conversation – qualities rarely found in similar boardroom debates.
We also held an ‘open mike’ session for staff to talk about business lessons from nature. We learned about the collaborative behaviour of killer whales, specialisation within prides of lions, how bees communicate and were entertained with stories from the vineyard.
Biomimicry: the next business revolution?
I was reminded of how biomimicry is increasingly shaping the way we do business. Biomimicry, the study of nature to inform technology, is seen by some as the next business revolution. Unlike earlier industrial revolutions that sought to extract more from the planet, biomimicry instead looks to nature for inspiration and lessons in efficiency. Much of the talk around the circular economy is informed by just such thinking. Nature is a closed loop that wastes nothing and is powered by renewable energy.
Examples of biomimicry abound:
• Sharklet: A bacteria inhibiting surface treatment based on the pattern found on, you guess it, shark skin. The microscopic pattern eliminates the need for chemical cleansing
•Whalepower: A company producing efficient blade designs for turbines and fans based on the ‘tubercles’ found of the 
leading edge of certain whale’s tails.
• Dew Bank: A water bottle which passively harvests moisture from the desert dew, whose design is derived from the observation of the onymacris unguicularis beetle.
As the sun set on our awayday, I made a promise to myself to try and get out and about a bit more; to better acknowledge nature as a teacher, and to try and view the natural world with more of the wonder it deserves.
Business would benefit from a little more bushcraft.
