AskNature Learning

Few industries command such global influence while intertwining as deeply with our daily lives as the fashion and textile industry, yet its rapid growth has exacted a heavy toll on our planet. The waste generated has further created a fundamentally broken system that is a significant contributor to humanity’s overshoot of Earth’s ecological limits and planetary boundaries. The industry operates on a linear “take-make-waste” model that depletes finite resources, generates enormous amounts of non-degradable waste and pollution, and operates with disregard for natural ecological cycles. Urgent action is needed to transform how we design and operate the fashion sector, recognizing that everything we make will ultimately return to the Earth. By learning from nature’s time-tested strategies, particularly the processes of decomposition through breakdown and transformation of materials, we can shift the industry towards a regenerative system.

This course will dive deeper into the current paradigm, and equip participants with the tools and inspiration needed to look to nature for solutions. Each week, we will host discussions and activities aimed at addressing the underlying challenges within this system as well as hear from companies leading the way in creating a life-friendly future. The Nature of Materials: Textiles course is a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in a community of biomimicry-minded sector-professionals and understand how to better translate strategies from the natural world to areas where they might make a real impact in the fashion and textile industry.

• Anyone in the fashion and textile industry ready to make a change
• Environmentalists and sustainability professionals 
• Designers, industry professionals, manufacturers, creators, company representatives, and other activators 
• Young professionals/university students
• No prior experience in biomimicry required, just your curiosity for nature’s inspiration

• Participants will develop a greater understanding of what it means to transform waste into a resource as inspired by nature and drive a related sector of the fashion industry to be more nature positive. 
• Participants will learn how to turn to nature for design solutions, and connect deeply with the organisms and strategies that they are inspired by.
• Participants will recognize the big ideas in this industry that can further help foster solutions towards the polycrisis of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Module 1: Understanding the Fashion Landscape 

Module 2: Learning from Nature – Introduction to the Biomimicry Process in Fashion and Textiles 

Module 3: The Solution Space Ecosystem

Module 4: Systems Shift