Image Via Flickr User jurvetson

Montana-based biologist and author Janine Benyus pioneered a new way of solving our world’s problems: Biomimicry, or as she explains it, “innovation inspired by nature.” She puts forward the simple idea that we look to the natural world to find the solutions for many of our problems. Like how we can use a leaf’s technology to some day fuel a hydrogen economy, or how we could use models based on neurons to revolutionize computers.

JG:
Is capitalism in its current form sustainable over the long-term?

JB:
No, I do not think capitalism in its current form is mature enough to look with a clear eye at the opportunities and the limits of the earth. Capitalism has focused on the opportunities, but has not been as truthful with itself at looking at the limits. Until it matures to the point that it truly incorporates into its economic models the true limits of what the earth offers us and will tolerate from us in terms of behaviour, its growth will be a depletion of our natural capital.

JG:
What does a sustainable economy look like?

JB:
I am a biologist, so I would have to go back to a biological model. I think it would look a lot like the self-sustaining mature ecosystems that we see in the natural world. Ecologists define a successionary model with three types of systems, from Type 1 to Type 3. The Type 1 system emerges from a disturbed environment, such as a turned-up farmer’s field or a wind gap in a forest. In this system, all resources are available and it is colonizing time. Species use an opportunistic strategy in which they take as many raw materials as they can and put them into products and waste and move on to their next set of raw materials. It is a linear process. In this Type 1 system, little energy is used for putting down roots, recycling loops or feedback loops. Or, for that matter, symbiotic relationships with other organisms or cooperative relationships. Because the intent is to move on. In the natural world this is a strategy that works well, but it is not the dominant strategy. It is a strategy for healing scars on the landscape and it prepares the landscape for the next kind of species. Type 2 and Type 3 are the mature systems that we should be emulating. These are systems like the large mature forest or the established prairie. Their biggest characteristic is that they are not going anywhere. They take what is given, the opportunities, and they acknowledges their limits. They start to recycle the nutrients over and over again.