Biomimicry casts the natural world as a library of solutions to human problems. But it’s not without its downsides.

Sustainability startups are not like other companies. To begin, they’re more critical than ever. While the clock ticks down to climate catastrophe —according to the UN, just 10 years away—a vision of a future in harmony with nature pulls you forward.

Sustainability startups make you feel like you’re on the right side of history. They are vigorous, spirited ventures. And they are also tremendously risky.

Most of the risk is a question of investment. Developing truly sustainable technologies takes years of research and development. But beyond investment risk, the failure of a sustainability startup means one less shot at that harmonious future. …

Without leaving my bedroom

I’ve never seen such casual brute strength as when an orangutan cracked a coconut on a tree trunk. One lolling swing of his brawny arm was enough to do the work of a dozen blows from the sharpest machete. He swept the dripping shell up to his protruding bottom lip and drank deep. Then he let the empty husk slip from his hand and sauntered up towards the canopy.

As he disappeared, I watched slack-jawed. I’d just glimpsed the graceful, formidable power of these animals and it felt so special I wanted that moment to be mine alone. But it wasn’t. I was sharing it with two dozen other tourists. We huddled together on a viewing platform in Semenggoh Nature Reserve in Malaysian Borneo, one of the last places — in the real world at least — you can come to see semi-wild orangutans. …

Nature documentaries will never be the same again.

I’m a huge fan of nature documentaries. They’ve opened up a world to me that I never would have been able to see for myself. Even though I’m happy to stop in a park and stare at the ants, I’m never going to dive under the ice caps to watch narwhals, or sit in a jungle canopy to catch a glimpse of flying squirrels.

But for a long time, I’ve had a creeping sense that nature documentaries are a comfortable fiction.

While I watch lush green on my screen, I forget about the forests that are burning or being cut down. I’m enraptured by snow leopards and elephants. …

In a very, very good way.

“Pollution is nothing but resources we’re not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.” Buckminster Fuller

In 1994 the CEO of a billion-dollar company had an epiphany that would see him come after the air you’re breathing.

Over the next 25 years, this CEO’s “spear in the chest” moment would see his company profit immensely by cleaning up excess carbon from the atmosphere.

Other billion dollar companies and a slew of startups are now racing down the path he pioneered.

The Carbon Drawdown gold rush has quietly begun.

Back in 1994, Ray Anderson was the CEO of Interface, a multi-million dollar carpet company that had produced America’s first ever carpet tiles. …

And the 3 reasons why it isn’t ready just yet.

1. Virtual Reality Meetings Are Anything But Dull

I had my first virtual reality business meeting this week on the fantastical links of Rec Room’s Frisbee Golf game.

Amidst the background chirping of birds and the warm light of a perfect afternoon, I could almost imagine the wafting of my air conditioner was a welcome summer breeze.

Though I was physically still in my home office, the virtual setting had transported me worlds away from my mundane meeting space.

It was a welcome break from the drab “new normal” and a significant improvement on almost every meeting space I’d ever been in.

2. Virtual Reality Freed My Creative Mind

In my new setting I found myself much more at ease than in a stuffy office environment, or even my own home office. As a result, I felt more free to experiment, create and propose. …

That question began my ethical and psychological preparation for the coming issue of vaccines.

Her answer started with a bit of prevarication.

“Well maybe they would… perhaps they might…”

I was asking in Vietnam, where they take COVID and testing super-seriously.

I couldn’t tell if the Vietnamese official was trying hard to hedge or just mustering the grammar to give an accurate answer to my question: What happens if someone says no to the mandatory COVID test?

I was chatting with an English speaking staff member at one of Vietnam’s pop-up COVID testing centres in Da Nang.

My home since the start of the pandemic, Da Nang is Vietnam’s fifth largest city and the epicentre of a second wave of COVID community transmissions. …

And solving the problems of money mindset.

I was standing on my balcony in Vietnam, watching the birds circle over the city at dusk when my mind went on a wild ride through problem solving psychology, money mindset, natural history and what birds can show us about feeling financially secure.

I drew three lessons about feeling financially secure from watching two different species of bird at dinner time.

The first heroes of this tale are house martins. These birds dip and dive and dart, wings all aflutter. These shaftless arrowheads glide for a moment before shooting across the sky. They grab small flies for dinner.

The other birds are a fantastical Asian species I’ve never been able to identify. This exotic blue and gold UFO reminds me of a kingfisher, if it had an unfortunate mating mishap with a pigeon. It lolls around on the thermals, wings locked fast, soaring. It barely deviates from it’s holding pattern to snatch its insect dinner from the air. …

They really work.

Written while listening to Bernie Krause’s recordings of natural sounds on the Wild Sanctuary website. You might like to put them on while you read.

A picture tells a thousand words, but a soundscape tells a thousand pictures.

And while a visual examination of an ecosystem might fail to reveal — or even mask — the truth of what’s going on, there’s no hiding from the microphone.

That’s the premise of Bernie Krause, a musician and “soundscape ecologist”. His life’s work has been to painstakingly record “The Great Animal Orchestra”, a soundscape of all the world’s habitats.

Beginning in 1968, Krause has traveled to ecosystems the world over. He’s captured the sounds made by biological organisms (biophony), as well as non-biological sounds, like wind and water (geophony). …