Biomimicry and cradle to cradle in product design: an analysis of current design practice

In the field of sustainable product design, the use of nature-inspired design (NID) strategies such as biomimicry and cradle to cradle has become more widespread, resulting in a variety of nature-inspired products. Research so far has studied NID on the basis of individual, key design cases and student projects. This paper assesses the state of NID at nine companies that have applied either biomimicry or cradle to cradle in product design. NID comes to the forefront as a promising but challenging new design paradigm. Analysis of best practice reveals that companies that applied a top-down approach, invested in training and/or external NID-experts, set positive and ambitious design targets, and included value chain partners early on in their projects were generally successful in removing barriers towards project success.