Environmental Footprints and Eco-design of Products and Processes

For billions of years, nature has provided efficient solutions to complex problems, by means of natural selection, in a harsh environment that only the fittest organisms survived. Such sustainable - still ruthless - driven evolution can be explored by designers, architects, engineers and more for the development of innovative projects. Biomimetics makes the link between Biology and Design, where features like shapes, mechanisms, colors, structures, and more can be analyzed, organized, modeled, and simulated for application in multiple creations. Therefore, such knowledge can contribute to more efficient and innovative solutions to many fields of applied science. This project aims to highlight some of the recent technological breakthroughs in Biology, Biomimetics and Natural Design that contribute to the development of sustainable and innovative materials and projects. This work consists of contributions from some of the main international groups of Biomimetics, exhibiting exciting cases of how technological advancements are leading to improved design solutions as well as shaping our very comprehension of nature and its complex organization.