Green tech transfer: nature-inspired innovation for climate change adaptation

Still treated as a novelty by most mainstream U.S. media, there is growing global use of nature-inspired innovations to deal with a number of challenges and undesired properties of business-as-usual, whether it be infrastructure, agriculture or product design, production, use or disposal. Collectively comprising a number of approaches —such as biomimicry, green chemistry, or regenerative manufacturing — nature-inspired innovation incorporates design and use principles borrowed from and complementary to nature.  The most promising aspects of all of these efforts are their economic value and efficiency compared to life cycle analyses of similar products and processes development through conventional means.

A report released in September from the PANORAMA platform — a partnership initiative focused on conservation and sustainable development topics — highlights successful examples from across the globe of yet another of the nature-inspired approaches to innovation:  ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA).  “Solutions in Focus: Ecosystem-based Adaptation from Mountains to Oceans” profiles 30 innovations people in countries around the world are implementing to adapt to climate change, many of which should have transferability to the range of ecosystems present in the United States and challenged by global warming.  For instance, nature-inspired solutions are presented for:

• the opposing issues of erosion control from too much precipitation and water management from declining precipitation levels and wildfire damage in mountain, grassland and forest ecosystems;
• flood, drought,  runoff and transboundary issues for rivers, wetlands and inland water ecosystems;
• sustainable natural resource management, soil restoration, food security and disaster resilience for agricultural and dryland ecosystems;
• urban agriculture, heat wave buffering green aeration corridors and storm water management/regeneration in urban ecosystems; and,
• adaptive coastlines, sustainable fisheries, mangrove restoration, and coral gardening for marine and coastal ecosystems at risk with ocean warming, acidification and rising sea levels.

The examples are drawn from the five-year Mainstreaming EbA project of the International Climate Initiative and funded as a contribution of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. The goal is to transfer knowledge of the successful solutions-oriented, nature-inspired, ecosystem-based adaptations for broad replication wherever potentially beneficial.  Information about more than 94 EbA solutions implemented across the planet, including the 30 highlighted in the report, is available at: www.panorama.solutions.