Foresight Folk

I recently had the pleasure of sharing some experiences with Foresight Folk on nature-inspired design, innovation, foresight, and futures.

Read the interview in full here, and an extract below.

Extract

‘Are there concrete lessons from ecosystems and nature that we can apply to preparing for the future?

The most important principle we can learn from nature is adaptation. Life endures because it evolves and adapts to specific circumstances. In fact, there are more species on this planet than we’ve even identified—by a wide margin—and that’s because life is constantly evolving to fit its environment. This adaptability is the key reason life persists, and it’s something we need to embrace.

Looking back at the Industrial Revolution, much of our current systems and industries were built around homogeneous, one-size-fits-all solutions. Whether it was an architectural style, a type of vehicle, or a kind of garment, the idea was to create something in one place and apply it universally. That mindset, rooted in the birth of modernism, was admirable in some respects—it aimed to provide a basic standard of design and production for everyone. For example, the Bauhaus movement in Germany sought to make good design accessible to all.

However, the world is far too diverse for this uniformity to work effectively. Different climates, cultures, and environments require different solutions. A foremost critical lesson from nature is to move away from homogeneity and embrace heterogeneity. We need to design solutions that are specific to place—whether it’s a building, a vehicle, or even a tire—by asking what is most appropriate for that particular environment. That doesn’t mean there won’t be some universal solutions; for instance, we can still produce computers that are largely similar.

That said, even technology will need adaptation. Those who’ve travelled with laptops recently will have noticed how extreme temperatures can quickly overheat lithium batteries, forcing devices to shut down for safety. Electronics, like everything else, need to be reimagined for diverse conditions to work effectively across different environments.

Beyond heterogeneity, another essential lesson from nature is circularity. Nature doesn’t produce waste—everything cycles. In the natural world, materials are continuously reused and reintegrated into the system. We need to adopt the same approach, not just thinking about where something originates but also where it ends up. Can we reconcile our materials and products with Earth’s systems so that nothing goes to waste?

If we can design things that are tailored to specific places and truly integrated into natural cycles, we’ll have made significant progress toward living sustainably. By aligning our systems with the principles of heterogeneity and circularity, we can create solutions that are both innovative and deeply rooted in the wisdom of nature.’