Imagine trying on a red sweater at the store. The label tells you that the vibrant fabric you hold in your hands is made dye-free and that the manufacturer commits to paying back a portion of its revenue to the coral reefs that inspired the process used to create the garment. This sweater employs biomimicry—designs borrowed from nature to solve human problems—to decrease human dependence on toxic dyes; it does so by looking to coral reefs as experts in natural color production. Biomimicry can revolutionize our society’s relationship with the more-than-human world, but only if we give nature proper credit for its contribution to our lives.
Influential certification programs like Fairtrade and 1% for the Planet have long leveraged consumers’ purchasing power to hold companies accountable for their sustainability commitments. These certification programs use eco-labels that attest to the environmental benefit of a purchase to encourage sustainable business practices. Fairtrade, for instance, provides financial and social support for agricultural communities and certifies that working conditions are humane. Add-on programs like Fairtrade Premium invest a percentage of profits back into communities to provide further benefits. Meanwhile, 1% for the Planet certifies companies that donate one percent of their annual sales to environmental organizations of the company’s choice. Such certification programs can help move us away from an extractive way of thinking about our relationship with the more-than-human (MOTH) world, as paying nature back for its contributions implicitly requires us to recognize it as a partner on equal footing.
Our current extractive system is harmful to the more-than-human world
Corporations derive countless economic benefits from solutions provided by the natural world. They generate profit by depleting natural resources and creating their products using nature’s designs, but the more-than-human world receives no formal recognition for its contributions to human enterprise. A biomimicry-specific third-party certification system would allow us to address this one-sided relationship: as it stands, even biomimicry designs that only take “inspiration” from nature and don’t hurt it directly still lack a sense of reciprocity and gratitude. These values are necessary if we are going to have a healthy, harmonious relationship with the environment. But anthropocentric economic development that views humanity as separate from—even superior to—other forms of life has led to the degradation of the planet and now threatens the livelihoods of humans as well as the more-than-human world.
A more harmonious relationship with the more-than-human world—one that protects humans and nonhumans alike on a healthy planet—will require a societal shift, encouraging reciprocity between humans and the rest of nature and leading us to take more responsibility for preventing the further degradation of our planet. While unravelling our current exploitative relationship with nature seems like a daunting task, modeling solutions after existing tools like certification bodies can help protect the natural systems from which we extract resources.
Certification programs: Toward a reciprocal relationship with the more-than-human world
A “back-to-nature” certificate program is one tool that can play an important role in the creation of a more reciprocal relationship between humans and the more-than-human world. A certificate program similar to Fairtrade or 1% for the Planet that allows companies to “give back” to the nature they take from can help to build a shift in our larger cultural relationship with nature, mobilizing consumers’ purchasing power to influence business practices.
Critics rightfully claim that traditional models employ counter-productive practices, such as greenwashing, that deceive consumers about the true impacts of their purchases. In addition to addressing these criticisms with intentional practices that focus on accountability and transparency, a MOTH-based certification system would also be based on reciprocity with nature rather than an anthropocentric worldview. It is not only about sustainability but also a conscious shift to recognizing our responsibility as guardians.
This could play out along two potential pathways: (1) the creation of a new biomimicry program dedicated to giving back to nature, or (2) the expansion of an existing certificate program to include a new biomimicry component.
The first pathway would use current certificates as models upon which to build a program based on the principles of MOTH rights. Existing certification programs have expert-created standards that align with their ethical and ecological values. A MOTH rights model would focus on de-centering human harms and include reciprocity, gratitude, and harmony within its core values, emphasizing our responsibility to nature as a living being that requires care and respect to thrive. The second pathway would expand an existing program using the support of an already established label. Working with an existing label would make it easier to raise public awareness, but it might also limit the new certifying body to the existing standards and practices of the program it aims to expand. On the other hand, building a new certification body would require more resources, especially to build the profile of the new label.
Both of these options offer financial compensation directly back to nature, initiating a reciprocal relationship between “the buyer” (humans) and “the seller” (nature). The resources derived from financial compensation can go directly to ecosystem restoration, resilience planning, and local communities or organizations whose lives and work depend on the natural environment from which biomimicry designs derive. But this is only a starting point. Our hope is that the agency of the MOTH world will expand far beyond the certification model in the years to come. Until we arrive in this future, a biomimicry certification model can begin the shift.
As climate change accelerates, innovative solutions for the protection of the MOTH world are necessary. A biomimicry-specific certifying body offers a minimally restrictive, voluntary option: participating companies are rewarded for their commitment to nature by attracting consumers who are aligned with them on environmental issues, while the certificate scheme also offers tangible funding and resources for climate adaptation and mitigation in vulnerable habitats.
Certification bodies help establish a long-term revenue stream that allows money made from designs inspired by nature to flow back to nature. More specifically, a biomimicry label can offer consumers the choice to protect the more-than-human world and promote broader recognition of nature’s intrinsic worth.