Ehab Sayed, Founder and Director of Innovation at Biohm as well as board member of Fast Forward 2030 and PhD researcher at Northumbria University, introduced his speech at Re-think Circular Economy Milan held last February, mentioning how the recent hard times were actually a great time for climate awareness and action. Reflections upon these topics brought Sayed to consider taking action in order to reverse human’s impact on the environment by actually bearing as an example the world we live in. According to him, nothing can demonstrate regeneration better than the natural world, and that is why taking a biomimetic approach could be a good solution for the future. Whilst people lived once their lives as part of a natural world, the world people built for themselves is marked by a form of extraction and consumption and has been shaped by stories and approaches prioritising economic values. Current habitats are predicted to grow by a further 40% in the next few decades and it is arguable that this growth will be supported by wasteful practices that will keep pushing the world’s limits far beyond their boundaries. Sayed then cited the construction industries as one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis, as much as food production waste contributes to wealth inequality all around the world. To solve these issues and make the world a better place, he suggested taking biological systems and ecological laws as the driving force of our current economy. This introduced the activity they do at Biohm, a multi-awarded research-and-development-led company that is driving a bio revolution in the built environment and the way they do business. In Biohm, they offer bio-based materials which can be used in the building fabric and interiors as well as wastewater treatment and construction systems, which direct buildings and a...
Biomimicry
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23 April 2020By Felipe Hernandez – CEO and Co-founder of Hexagro English Version Felipe Hernandez begins his speech introducing a problem: the scarcity of food for the inhabitants of the planet. In fact, a population of 9 billion, is expected to be reached by 2050, which will require a 70% increase in food production. Some companies have tried to solve this problem by developing the cultivation of food through “Indoor Farming” or “Vertical Farming“, but these techniques still have very high costs, both for development and maintenance. Hexagro is an international startup based in Milan, born to reconnect people to nature: its vision is to bring nature to the workplace, using existing technology. People spend an average of 90% of their time inside buildings, where pollution is 5 times greater than outside, causing a direct impact on people’s health, food habits and perceived happiness. These considerations have given birth to a new idea: create office plants that are also useful for the health of those who work. The plants, which Hexagro offers, grow within some modules whose design and structure take inspiration from beehives and trees, with the aim of maximizing the use of space. These do not include pesticides and require a limited use of water since the high oxygenation of the plants, deriving from the use of aeroponics as a cultivation technique, reduces water consumption between 90 and 98%, in addition to tripling the speed of plant growth. The modules on which the plants grow are configurable on the basis of the available space and can be chosen among three different configurations, having different dimensions, and being capable of growing different types of plants. For example, an “indoor garden” has developed, located in the Novotel Ca’ Granda building in Milan, containing a cultivation of different types of herbs. The product...