Abstract:

Biomimicry, namely innovation that emulates nature’s forms, processes, and systems, offers a compelling pathway for sustainability education. By examining how organisms and ecosystems achieve efficiency and resilience, biomimicry translates “life’s genius” into actionable design principles that can reduce resource use, minimise waste and pollution, regenerate ecosystems, and create solutions better adapted to environmental change. In Vocational Education and Training (VET), where learning is closely connected to occupational practice and sector standards, biomimicry can strengthen sustainability competencies while cultivating creativity, inquiry, collaboration, and problem-solving relevant to real jobs and emerging green markets.

This paper presents Let’s Mimic, an Erasmus+ funded European collaboration project that integrates biomimicry design into VET to build sustainability skills and foster innovation inspired by natural models. The project responds to a structural challenge: many work routines, standards, and regulations were shaped in an era when sustainability was not a central priority, and may still reinforce linear, resource-intensive “business-as-usual” practices. VET can facilitate change by equipping learners with practical competences for greener work, responsible entrepreneurship, community support, and social innovation, aligned with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Let’s Mimic develops a biomimicry skills and competence framework for VET and implements it through a learning model that combines Project-Based Learning (PBL), microlearning, and digital collaboration. Learners engage with authentic sustainability challenges and apply biomimicry steps Define, Biologise, Discover, Abstract, Emulate, Evaluate to design and evaluate nature-inspired solutions. The intervention supports the development of green competences, such as resource efficiency and circular thinking; digital skills, including online collaboration, information handling, resource evaluation, and sharing; and transversal competences, such as critical thinking, teamwork, communication, and self-regulation. In parallel, the project strengthens educators' capacity through guidance on facilitation, inclusive learning design, and assessment.

Key outputs include a toolkit of 60 biomimicry cases and solutions to inspire learner inquiry; seven training modules with structured steps, resources, and implementation guidance; an educator handbook supporting curriculum integration and assessment; and a Biomimicry Digital Learning Platform that enables team-based work through shared digital spaces, real-time co-creation, iterative development, and practical application of biomimicry steps. The platform scaffolds each phase of the biomimicry process and supports self-regulated learning through short, focused learning units.

The approach is piloted in Greece, Romania, Turkey, Spain, France, and Portugal, generating evidence on feasibility, learner engagement, educator readiness, and transferability across VET contexts and sectors. Let’s Mimic contributes a practical, scalable model for embedding biomimicry into vocational training, positioning nature-inspired design as a structured methodology for sustainability skills and strengthening VET’s role in the green transition.

Keywords:

Biomimicry, innovation, sustainability, VET.