What the Australian outback teaches us about circular design

This article was contributed by Planet Protector.

Although it was coined in the 1980s, sustainability is not a modern idea.

Indigenous communities around the world have been practising sustainable resource management and circular economy principles long before these concepts became part of contemporary discourse. For them, recognising and respecting the interdependence between humans and the natural world is a way of life. The Maya people have used crop rotation and intercropping to improve soil health for over three centuries. Closer to home, the Aboriginal Australians continue to rely on the ancient practice of firestick farming to preserve the health of the land and the environment.

As the push for transitioning to a circular economy gets stronger, I [Joanne Howarth, Founder/CEO of Planet Protector] wonder if the most powerful way to make it happen has been hiding all along in indigenous wisdom. Join me as I explore the age-old links between nature, indigenous wisdom, and circular solutions.

Framing the concept of circularity through nature

According to the UN, the world population is projected to surpass 9.8 billion by 2050, placing even greater pressure on the world’s finite resources. Let’s take packaging demand, for example. Without circular alternatives, the demand for plastic consumer packaging could see a 17% rise by 2050. This is particularly alarming as less than 10% of all plastics ever produced have been successfully recycled.

So, how can we transition to a circular economy as quickly and efficiently as possible? Well, nature has all the answers we need.

Natural ecosystems are inherently circular. From fallen leaves to bird droppings, nothing ever goes to waste. Instead, it becomes a source of fuel for new life. These systems offer valuable lessons on how to design everything from buildings to packaging. The ultimate goal of any company should not be to design “less bad” products but to create a net-positive impact on the environment and society. That’s how the indigenous people have been living all along.

Indigenous knowledge as a blueprint for circular systems

As Australia’s first farmers and custodians of their lands, the indigenous people possess an intergenerational understanding of the native resources, local ecosystems, seasonal weather patterns, and wildlife behaviour. They’ve been using fire stick farming long before it became a mainstream forest management practice. In fire stick farming, low-intensity fires are used to clear underbrush, prevent uncontrolled bushfires, and promote biodiversity and the growth of specific plant species.

According to historians, when the first European settlers arrived in 1788, the Aboriginal Australians were already using sophisticated land management practices to thrive in Australia’s harsh and erratic climate. Drought- and fire-tolerant crops, such as kangaroo grass, were allowed to flourish to protect the soil during the summer and provide nutritious fodder to grazers during tough times. With the arrival of colonists, Aboriginal farming techniques quickly faded into obscurity.

Unlike Western culture, where resilience, biodiversity, and resource conservation have only gained attention after the climate crisis emerged, indigenous people have always believed in living in harmony with the local ecosystems. For them, the land is a living, breathing entity, and they must give back as much as is taken in order to maintain a regenerative relationship.

Biomimicry from the bush

Biomimicry is a fascinating approach to design that has taken the scientific and business world by storm. It involves emulating the patterns that exist in natural systems to design sustainable solutions. For those who care about biomimicry, a rich and diverse ecosystem like the Australian outback can be an infinite source of inspiration. For example, the termite mounds that punctuate the bush can offer valuable insights into sustainable building design. These tall conical structures offer respite to millions of mud-harvesting termites from the harsh weather. Its porous surface captures heat during the day to keep the termites comfortable at night. A building inspired by termite mounds exists in Zimbabwe– the Eastgate Harare Centre uses 90% less energy than a similar-sized building in the same region.

The spinifex grass is another prominent feature of the Australian outback that has inspired innovation, particularly in packaging and material science. A collaboration between the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu people and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) to study the iconic grass resulted in a startling discovery. The plant contains nanofibres of stretchy cellulose with a tensile strength that far surpasses that of steel. These nanofibers can be incorporated into natural rubber latex to enhance its resilience and toughness. In packaging, spinifex’s nanocellulose can be used to create 100% biodegradable, extremely stretchy, and strong paper packaging that can potentially eliminate thermoplastic from supply chains.

Supply chain as an ecosystem

Natural ecosystems have evolved over millions of years, making them highly interconnected, decentralised, and adaptive. Let’s look at an example. The mycelium network relies on a web of fungal threads to transport nutrients, information, and resources among plants, trees, and other fungi across the ecosystem. By facilitating communication, cooperation, and resource exchange between various species, this decentralised network plays a vital role in ensuring the health of the entire ecosystem.

Unlike natural ecosystems, modern supply chains are fragile, complex, and highly globalised, making it challenging to respond and adapt when a crisis emerges. While globalisation has made operations efficient and global markets more accessible, offshoring production makes supply chains highly prone to disruption and failures.

Local supply chains, on the other hand, work like closed-loop systems with more efficient material loops and less leakage, waste, and dependency on external supply chains. Localising material procurement and designing for reuse, repair, and recycling within local systems are some of the ways companies can make their supply chains more circular, while helping build resilient economies where people and nature coexist in harmony.

Drawing on nature’s genius and indigenous wisdom to transform packaging

For the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, caring for Country is caring for the lands, seas, and living beings. They strongly believe that “if you care for the country, the country will care for you.” In sharp contrast to the rest of the world, the Aboriginal peoples’ connection with the land is not centred on ownership, but on responsibility and custodianship. The indigenous worldviews offer valuable insights to the packaging business on how to move from a resource-extraction mindset to one that contributes positively to nature.

Packaging is an essential part of modern living. It not only protects the products during transport but also helps reduce food waste by keeping produce healthy and farm fresh. However, the industry has long faced criticism for prioritising aesthetic appeal in the design process over functionality and ecosystem harmony. While dazzling a customer is important, packaging companies can improve circularity by building the concept of no waste into the design process. It’s always easier to prevent waste from being created than to deal with it later. This can be achieved by choosing mono-materials that can be easily processed in existing recycling systems or by designing products for easy disassembly, reuse, and repair.

Mori is a great example of a packaging company adopting a systems thinking approach to improve circularity. The packaging company analysed the Bombyx Mori silkworm’s ability to protect itself in the natural ecosystem to create a protective silk protein layer that slows down processes that cause food to spoil. By naturally increasing the shelf life of fruits, veggies, seafood, and more, Mori silk™ reduces food and packaging waste from ending up in landfills.

Conclusion – an invitation to think differently

Sustainability is not about switching materials; it’s about a mindset shift. But the cold, hard truth is that humans are the only species that take more, much more than we give back. As the oldest living cultures, the Aboriginal communities are aware of this, which is why their way of living is inherently regenerative. Instead of viewing land as a commodity to exploit, they feel responsible for it and defend it. Recognising, emulating, and scaling traditional indigenous practices can accelerate our transition from a take-make-dispose economy to one that benefits all – the people, plants, animals, and the planet.

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This is an article from a SustainabilityTracker.com Member. The views and opinions we express here don’t necessarily reflect our organisation.