What is Biomimicry?

The Basics

Designing for a future that nature has already perfected.

5 minute read

15th Jul 2025

In Japan, the country’s bullet train, designed to cut swiftly across the landscape at hundreds of kilometres an hour, was making too much noise. Each time it exited a tunnel, it released a loud sonic boom that startled nearby residents. Engineers asked themselves: “How can we quieten something built to move that fast?”

One of the lead engineers, also a keen birdwatcher, drew from an observation of how a kingfisher could dive into water at high speed without making a splash. The bird’s long, tapered beak became a blueprint. Mimicking its shape, the team re-designed the train’s nose, ushering in a new fleet of trains with no more booms, 10% more speed and 15% less energy used. Nature, once again, had already solved the problem.

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What does biomimicry mean?

As biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus puts it: “Biomimicry is basically taking a design challenge and then finding an ecosystem that’s already solved that challenge, and literally trying to emulate what you learn.”

Nature operates with complex simplicity, which is why engineers and designers turn to it. Benyus outlines three types of biomimicry:

Copying form and shape – like the bullet train, inspired by a bird’s form.
Copying processes – like cleaner energy solutions that draw on photosynthesis.
Copying ecosystems – like buildings that regulate temperature as efficiently as termite mounds.

Examples of businesses using biomimicry include:

Sharklet Technologies. Inspired by the skin of sharks, Sharklet Technologies developed a surface material that inhibits bacterial growth, reducing the need for harmful chemical disinfectants in hospitals, water treatment facilities and more.

Nike’s Flyknit technology. Inspired by the structure of bird nests, Nike’s Flyknit uses a precise knitting pattern to create lightweight, strong and breathable shoe uppers with minimal waste.

Herman Miller’s Aeron chair. Inspired by the natural structure of the human spine, Herman Miller created the Aeron chair with a flexible mesh that supports a variety of postures while ensuring comfort and durability.

The Eden Project’s Biomes. The UK’s Eden Project features large domed biomes inspired by the structure of plant cells, using the natural principles of temperature and humidity regulation to create ideal growing conditions for diverse plant species.

BMW’s GINA Light Visionary Model. BMW’s GINA concept car draws on the flexibility and strength of the human skin, using a unique, fabric-like material for the car’s outer shell that can stretch and adjust its shape for different conditions.

“Biomimicry is basically taking a design challenge and then finding an ecosystem that’s already solved that challenge, and literally trying to emulate what you learn.”
Janine Benyus

What does biomimicry mean for business?

Beyond smarter products and more efficient systems, biomimicry offers a way to see business as part of something living.

In nature, collaboration is how life works. Forests trade resources underground. Mycelium threads connect plant roots across entire ecosystems. A swarm of ants navigates obstacles with no central command where communication is constant, decentralised and responsive.

Temnothorax ants, for example, use a method known as tandem running, where one ant leads another to a resource. If the follower disappears, the leader waits. If the leader vanishes, the follower doesn’t give up. It searches, first close by, then in widening arcs, adjusting its path as it goes. What matters is that the system adapts, and no effort is wasted.

These behaviours, shaped over millions of years, offer something businesses often struggle to achieve: resilience without rigidity – the ability to re-route and keep moving forward when the original plan falls apart. It’s evolution’s way of letting form follow function.

How can we listen to nature?

One morning in 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral took his dog for a walk. When they got home, his dog’s fur and his own wool trousers were riddled with sticky burrs. Most people would have brushed them off, but their persistence caught his attention. Curious, he examined them under a microscope, and discovered a system of tiny hooks that allowed them to cling to other materials so effectively. That simple observation would go on to inspire the invention of VELCRO®.

Nature has had 3.8 billion years to perfect its ideas, so why not go for a long walk and steal a few?

Always balancing, thriving and surviving, nature’s dynamic resilience makes its solutions so remarkably enduring. Whether it’s how to organise, adapt or build, designers, engineers and businesses are increasingly turning to nature for inspiration.

But nature only offers answers if we learn to ask the right questions – and take the time to really look. Every breakthrough in biomimicry starts with paying attention. The next great innovation could be hiding in the weather, the ocean, the forest – or even a pond. The clues are everywhere, if we’re willing to notice.

“These behaviours, shaped over millions of years, offer something businesses often struggle to achieve: resilience without rigidity – the ability to re-route and keep moving forward when the original plan falls apart.”