Welcome to the 2021 Biomimicry Launchpad! Email us if you have any questions.

Week 5

Week 5 Content

BONUS MATERIAL - Tools for Measuring Environmental Impact

This week should be a lot of fun - it is all about physically building your prototype! Together we will learn about the various aspects you will need to build to test your solution. You will also learn about how to make sustainable design choices, so that solving one problem does not lead to another.

Building your prototype

You may think that having a great idea and design is enough to put together a winning proposal for an investor or client. While you might get lucky that you have immediately stumbled upon the perfect solution to change the world, that’s extremely unlikely right out of the gate. Nearly every idea must be nurtured to become great. It must be tested and evaluated to prove that your concept will work; failures and weaknesses identified and changed. This is called prototyping, and if done properly will not only prove your concept but will significantly improve it.

Prototyping is the trial and error space in which you can test things, find failures, look for problems or successes, and to make your idea tangible to see if it actually will work. How you choose to approach the prototyping will lay the groundwork for your product’s future. Each prototype you make should inform your design in some way. It should always be telling you something new about your product.

Evolution = Prototype Testing

As a natural comparison to this practice, consider the evolutionary process. While genetic mutations are not intentional, they are the natural iterations of our genetic code. Some work better than others in a specific environment, and some work less well. Those mutations that perform the best in their surroundings are those that survive to reproduce most effectively passing that genetic iteration along. Then the process repeats, driving evolution and speciation. This natural prototyping, while passive instead of active, drives home how important it is to constantly be trying new things to improve your product, to be making small changes quickly and often to see what works without investing lots of time or money upfront, and to always consider the conditions in which the product will perform to make sure it is tailored to the function you are looking to achieve.

Back to prototyping. Often, what works in your head ends up having problems once you try to make it in the physical world. Sometimes the act of trying to build it for the first time will open up new ideas and inspiration for the improvement of your concept. Your prototypes can test one or all of the aspects of a design, as long as you are continually adding information to what works best in the environment and conditions your product will perform. Each of the changes and adjustments you make to your idea are called iterations. These modifications are the driving force improving your product.

Prototyping - wk 5.mp4

Three things to prototype for:

Desirability - Do people actually want what you are creating?
Feasibility - Is it technically possible to build your solution?
Viability - Will your business model work, and can it be financially sustainable?

Examples of questions to ask, and prototype examples that could help answer them, include:

Is your solution structurally sound? -- Building a model to scale may help answer this.
Is our material actually waterproof? -- You may not need a full scale model to test this. Does a smaller sample of the material work (this can provide the answer and save you money)?
Is the size you estimated practical for production? -- What limiting factors do you have for production? How can you test those limits?
Is the overall shape or style visually appealing? -- Your prototype may or may not have to function to be able to showcase the shape or style and then ask a sample of consumers their opinion.
Is it intuitive to use? -- What part of the product is somebody interacting with? How can you prototype it so that someone trying it can provide you with useful feedback?

How you prototype, what you prototype, and how many prototypes you make are entirely dependent on the question you are asking, the product you have designed, and your current stage of development. As your idea progresses, you will find ways to address questions like:

Does it function?
Is it feasible?
Is it desirable?
Is it affordable?
Is it practical?
Does it have any weaknesses?

As you collect the answers to those questions, you adapt and adjust until you have achieved your desired result.

In the startup world people sometimes confuse prototypes with Minimum Viable Products (MVPs). The main difference is that your MVP is a "live" product that is providing value to someone - you should try to monetize MVPs! Prototypes are more like tests that will help you validate various assumptions. At this stage, most of you are creating prototypes, not MVPs.

Biomimicry in Practice

As mentioned in Week 1, ethos refers to the intention of biomimicry. Biomimics encourage emulation of the deeper sustainability principles within the natural world, toward more regenerative human development. To this end, the biomimicry community has identified a set of aspirational principles that should be incorporated into the design process to facilitate both sustainability and innovation.

When you are creating your prototypes, keep in mind Nature's Unifying Patterns and revisit the Biomimicry Design Checklist. Use these tools to evaluate your product/design and assess sustainability. Remember, these principles are aspirational. Due to current constraints in materials and manufacturing, you may not be able to meet all of them, but you can use the boxes you're not able to check to drive more innovative thinking!

We have also included several prototyping resources on the Resources page under "Sustainable Design", "Prototyping", and "Biomimicry". If you have not yet connected with your local startup incubator or maker-space, take the time to do so this week as they often have resources available to help you prototype your solution.

Green Materials and Chemistry

As an aspiring designer, there are a lot of things to consider as you're bringing your designs to life: performance standards, cost of goods, ethical sourcing, and government regulations to name a few.

To get started please review the free, short course about Materials, their Chemistry, and Human Health from the Healthy Materials Lab at Parson's School of Design as an introduction to the importance of material and chemical choices.

In addition to healthy chemical and material considerations, we believe that it is in your best interest to ensure that you are using green materials in whatever you make. You can ask yourself the following questions:

How does the production of your product impact people and the environment?
How does your product impact people and the environment?
At the end of its life, how does your product impact people and the environment?

In 2020, the Harvard Business Review released a case study focused on three multi-national companies titled "A More Sustainable Supply Chain." There is increasing focus on corporate sustainability - how do you contribute to or enable this movement? Are you keeping up with new government regulations and consumer demand?

BONUS MATERIAL - Tools for Measuring Environmental Impact

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

A Life Cycle Assessment measures the environmental impacts of a product or service. LCAs take into account everything from raw material production, to transportation of products and materials, to its end of life (and everything in between). At this point in time, you don't have the data to perform a complete LCA, but you can start implementing processes to get ready for this. Read the Life Cycle Assessment - Complete Beginner's Guide by Ecochain or What is Life Cycle Assessment by Sphera for more information and to learn about their LCA reporting tools.

Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)

Environmental Product Declarations are defined by ISO 14025 as a Type III declaration that "quantifies environmental information on the life cycle of a product to enable comparisons between products fulfilling the same function." The goal of an EDP is as follows (quoting from Ecomatters):

To objectively and transparently communicate information on the environmental aspects of products according to the life cycle stages of a product (i.e. based on LCA).
Allow purchasers and/or users to make a fair comparison of the environmental performance of products within a life cycle perspective. See UL's SPOT tool for examples.
They encourage improvement of environmental performance.

An EPD is very important for B2B products in the built environment (materials, chemicals, etc.), as they are an important part of LEED certifications and help companies meet their sustainability targets. In addition to EPD's there are numerous other certifications such as Cradle to Cradle, Safer Choice, and UL GREENGUARD.

Carbon Footprint

A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) that are generated by our actions. You can measure your household's Carbon Footprint by using this tool from the Nature Conservancy. Some companies, specifically B2C companies, are starting to report their product's carbon footprint. We like how the company Allbirds is declaring their carbon footprint on all of their products, just like how companies report the amount of calories in food.

When you hear about companies pledging to be carbon neutral (such as Netflix's recent announcement) that means they have calculated their company's entire carbon footprint, and are either reducing their emissions or sequestering carbon (typically via buying carbon offsets / credits).

Reconnect

In response to the onset of the COVID-19 "stay at home" orders in March 2020, Biomimicry Institute created our 30 Days of Reconnection campaign. This was our offer of an opportunity to try a new practice, one built on reconnecting to nature. We asked, what might we return to after 30 (or more) days of observing how a leaf works, how a spider senses, how ants assign duties to one another, or how energy and mass are linked in a perpetual life cycle dance?

As you're thinking about prototyping this week, we encourage you to check out Day 15 of the campaign, Identifying Patterns in Nature. Try searching for natural patterns in your own backyard or nearby green-space, or dig into the resources offered in the campaign.

Assignments

Watch the Week 5 videos and complete the assignments before your 1-on-1 coaching call.
Create a prototyping plan and send it to your coach to review. Make sure to include the questions you are trying to answer, and how you aim to complete your prototype. Then, start prototyping!
Talk to at least 5 customers, with a specific focus on gaining clarity around the value you can bring to them. Continue to test assumptions!

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