From Geomimetic to Biomimetic Manufacturing: Digitally Transforming Industry for Sustainability

Abstract

Digital technologies and Industry 4.0 hold the prospect of improving the sustainability performance of manufacturing, but the environmental implications of this transformation are uncertain. To contribute to resolving the environmental impacts of production, Industry 4.0 needs to be guided by sustainable manufacturing principles. This article asserts that we have access to only one functioning example of sustainable production on planet Earth, which is nature, and that Industry 4.0 guided by natural biomimetic principles can advance sustainable production goals. It first contends that industry to date has been guided geomimetic principles—which is the industrial mimicking of physical geologic processes—and that geomimicry is a source of many environmental externalities arising from industrial production. The paper then introduces a series of nature-inspired, biomimetic principles that can be facilitated by the unique capabilities inherent in emerging digital production technologies.