Tag Archives: Biomimicry

Episode 63 Bill Browning

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HOPE!

That’s what we all need in this torrid political climate, or what Bill Browning calls the “tide of stupidity.”

Bill Browning gives me hope. His mind is brilliant and inventive, and his heart and soul care at the core for our sustainable future. Beyond net zero, Bill strives for net “positive” – what we refer to as regenerative and the name of my podcast show – Regen360.

In this week’s podcast, we have the opportunity to be inspired and learn from Bill. He talks about his work with cities and companies that are doubling down and “making loud statements” despite the pushback. He educates us on biophilic and fractal effects and ecosystem biomimicry. We get to learn about “factories of forest.”

I encourage you to join Bill Browning and me in an enthralling dialog. Click here to tune in and be inspired as I was.

Here’s to putting points on the board of Mother Earth and increasing ecosystem profitability.

-David

Episode 56 Beth Rattner

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For much of our history, we’ve struggled against nature, even working to tame it as we built civilizations. However, the field of Biomimicry turns the issue around 180 degrees and shows us how to learn from nature as our best teacher. If we study nature and begin to embody its design laws into our creations, we can live in greater harmony and life flourish.

Human systems design has been flawed for more than a century, and none greater than after the industrial revolution. We’ve created enormous pollution, waste, and harmful toxins. As a result, the health of the planet and all of us is suffering and our future sustainability questionable.

In this week’s Regen360 iTunes podcast we learn from Beth Rattner, Executive Director of the Biomimicry Institute, which was founded by Janine Benyus and Bryony Schwan in 2006. The Institute is helping us learn from nature through its programs and tools including ASKNature.

Our future resiliency requires a nature-based design approach to everything we do. I hope you’ll join us to learn more. We need to “view nature not as a warehouse of goods, but as a storehouse of knowledge and inspiration for sustainable solutions.”

David Gottfried

Episode 21 Bill Browning

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I remember the first time I heard Bill Browning speak. It was in 1991 at the AIA convention in Boston. Initially, I was sitting in the rear, but I moved to the front row after he’d started so that I could catch every word. Bill is a bit soft spoken and speaks at his own cadence, stopping to smile, chuckle and sprinkle his thoughtful words with humor or more like an erudite riddle. He spoke about terms I’d never heard before: life cycle assessment, embodied energy, blackwater treatment. I wrote so fast in my notebook that it’s a wonder that I didn’t break my pen.

Please join me in this week’s Regen360 podcast show where I have the pleasure of interviewing Bill Browning. We talk about Biomimicry and some of his favorite green projects. We reminisce about the early days of green building such as the greening of the White House.

At that first green convention for me, I learned that Bill had started the green development services arm of the renowned Rocky Mountain Institute, under the tutelage of Amory Lovins. I’d read Amory’s book Soft Energy Paths in my solar engineering course at Stanford in 1981. It was the first time I’d heard the term Amory invented: Negawatt, meaning that a watt of energy saved is equivalent in power to a watt generated, but has a zero ecological footprint.

Bill went on to write several important sustainable building books, including Green Development. We first worked together when I founded ASTM’s green subcommittee and then the U.S. Green Building Council in 1992. Bill was our first environmental organization member and is still active 25 years later.

What I love about Bill is his mind. It’s prolific, almost photographic and critically analytic. It seems that all concepts come easy to Bill and his unique ability is the synthesis and articulation. He can apply his focus to almost any topic, but sustainability and the future survival of humans and other species is his main concern.

Please join me to hear my interview with Bill Brown in this week’s Regen360 podcast show. You’ll understand why Bill is so dear to the world and our future, and worth every minute of your time.

To our sustainable future,
David