Looking to Nature for the Next Industrial Revolution

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There’s another industrial revolution forming, and it promises to be at least as far reaching as the ones before it.

Because this revolution is taking shape across multiple technologies—game-changing advances in fields ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to synthetic biology to nanoscience and quantum computing—its potential and reach are not immediately evident. It doesn’t even have an official name—yet.

We call this revolution “nature co-design”: the harnessing of nature's design principles and manufacturing capabilities to design and operate at the atomic level of organic and inorganic matter. It builds on the coming wave of deep tech innovation and encompasses a clear problem orientation, the convergence of emerging technologies and approaches, and the speed of the design-build-test-learn (DBTL) cycle. Its collective force and reach are about to become clear.

BCG has estimated that nature co-design will affect more than $30 trillion of economic activity over the next 30 years, the equivalent of 40% of current global GDP. The World Economic Forum has estimated that the disruption could lead to annual business opportunities worth $10 trillion and create 395 million jobs by 2030. For companies in such industries as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agriculture and food supply, and advanced materials and manufacturing, the disruption is likely to be greater than anything that digital technologies have wrought.

This report looks at the gathering force of nature co-design, its effects on many value chains, and the way it fits within the broader great wave of deep tech innovation.

The Power and Reach of Nature Co-Design

To understand the potential impact of nature co-design, consider one of the world’s oldest and most valuable industrial processes, the Haber-Bosch process for producing ammonia and nitrogen fertilizers. Haber-Bosch, which hasn’t changed much since it went into production in 1913, is one of the main reasons farms can produce sufficient output to feed 7.8 billion people. But the process requires massive amounts of energy to convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, consuming 3% to 5% of the world's natural gas supply and around 1% to 2% of the world's total energy supply. It is responsible for more than 1% of all CO2 emissions, and its N2O emissions are 250 to 300 times more potent than CO2 in contributing to global warming. More than 50% of the nitrogen washes off crops, contaminating water sources.

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