Why integrating Biomimicry in a Packaging Development Structure?

Why integrating Biomimicry in a Packaging Development Structure?

By Paulo Correia, Chief Technology Officer of LOGOPLASTE and Manager of LOGOPLASTE Innovation Lab Consulting

Logoplaste has been known since it’s creation in 1976 of being an extremely Innovative company.

 This started with it’s pioneer business model where the integration of the production of the containers are made by Independent production cell’s installed primarily in the facilities of our partners.    This was the start of the adventures, and thru the 40 years of the company, different services and capabilities have been added to the business model.

  In what refers to packaging development, LOGOPLASTE was once again pioneer, and in the year 2000, created an Independent structure capable of developing Packaging solutions for LOGOPLASTE, but to act as well independently with any company in the market.

The company was named LOGOPLASTE Innovation Lab, and thru the years has not only been highly active in Packaging Development, with a Unique structure adapted to follow projects in all phases of development (Structure Slide), but has been as well involved in developing Proprietary software specialized in packaging development.

Software like:

• Pre-Form generator (Automatic Design of Pre-forms)
• SBM Simulator (SBM Simulation)
• PERMALAB (Permeability Simulation)
• Design Metrics (Evaluation of Design concepts)

Are some of these tools that enabled the development structure to manage around 900 projects/year.

The Integration of Design in the development structure was the last phase of the development structure growth, and very recently within the structure of Design, the integration of Biomimicry was again, another step in the Innovative growth of LOGOPLASTE.

What is Biomimicry?

In a very simplistic way, Biomimicry is about Innovation Inspired by Nature. It's about studying a natural organism and how it solves a particular problem and apply its teachings to address a human challenge. And in order to successfully be able to do so, we use Nature as a model, to develop new forms, processes and systems, as a measure, to evaluate their sustainability, and as a mentor that guides and help us set aspirational goals.

In the case of LOGOPLASTE Innovation Lab it means that we use Nature as inspiration for the development of new packaging solutions.

The Biomimicry Thinking equation is not as simple as it might originally look and we should not simplify its methodology, as simply taking structures used by Nature and integrate them in the Design of a Package. In reality the process is far more complex.

Before we can start the emulation process, we first need to comply to the first two essentials elements of Biomimicry, the Ethos and the Reconnect. These means that we need to respect Nature and stop looking at all the other forms of life and natural resources on this planet as something that exists solely to serve us humans. In one short sentence, these means that before we can start learning from nature, we need to calm down our human cleverness and leave the superiority pedestal where we put ourselves.

But the Essential elements of Biomimicry are just the starting point of the Biomimicry Thinking process. In order to emulate Nature's strategies and properly apply them to packaging and develop genuine sustainable solutions, we also need to fully integrate the Life's Principles, which are a set of laws of nature to which every single living organism that lives on this planet needs to comply to in order to successfully survive.

We should also separate Biomimicry from Bio-Utilization and Bio-Assisted solutions. There's nothing wrong with these models, if they are supported by sustainable practices, but they are not Biomimicry.

Main differences are illustrated under.

We integrated Biomimicry Thinking in the structure of Logoplaste Innovation Lab by putting the Biomimicry factors at the core of our Innovation Bias. These means that whatever the opportunity that we have to address a human need, whatever the technical solution that we choose to implement it, or the Business model that we use to support its viability, all these variables need to answer one basic question that is key to our decision process... "What creates conditions conducive to life?".

By integrating Biomimicry Thinking at Logoplaste Innovation Lab, we basically moved from a human centered innovation process to a Life's centered innovation process.

Some examples of the work developed by LOGOPLASTE Innovation LAB.

Vitalis Water Bottles

Vitalis Water Bottles was the first experience in the domain of Biomimicry.

The Project enabled the company to understand the high potential of the integration of Biomimicry in the Packaging Design Structure.

ECOVER Ocean Bottle

The ECOVER Ocean Bottle project is the true essence of a Biomimicry Project, by combining not only the package Design, but integrating the full essence of the discipline.

The Concept won almost everything that there was to win on packaging Design.

EPAL – Fill Forever bottle

Using Packaging Design to Educate consumers

The Biomimicry Thinking Process proved to be a real alternative for Packaging development.

It has given technical processes, solutions and tools, that were not available, pushing the solutions to a different level.

 For our partners apart from overcoming the challenges, there is an extra Bonus coming from the process, that is related with the fact that is capable of creating very strong bonds with consumers, eventually to level’s that were not possible before.

A very “Natural” Story, one can say!!