It’s mind-bending to stop and think about how much ‘stuff’ around us is made from oil: cleaning products, packaging, furniture, homeware, clothing, the list goes on.
Over the past century, we’ve perfected the art of turning petroleum into virtually anything. Of course, what we now know is that this has produced a glut of materials and products that are cheap and high-performing, yet fundamentally undermine our ability sustain life on earth.
What if we could make the things we need with an alternative set of building blocks? If materials like plastics were healthy instead of harmful for the world around us? Or a step even further — if we could create new materials that are actively good for people and the planet?
Nature has, billions of years, created vast quantities of materials without landfill or waste — plants and animals all over the world make materials with ingredients that other organisms can use, break down, and use again. So, when we founded Materiom, we looked to a nature-inspired model where materials are made to cycle continuously, in local and regional loops.
We envisioned a world where everyone, everywhere could participate in creating the next generation of materials. Digital fabrication had opened up the world of manufacturing to smaller, more localised players, unlocking the potential to produce more regionally appropriate products closer to the end consumer. But materials making was — and still is — a relatively centralised industry for large industrial players. The majority of local businesses simply didn’t see themselves making their own plastics, yarns, cardboards or dyes — much less playing an active role in sourcing and cycling them sustainably. To us, there was a clear leverage point here. By enabling the creation of materials that were good by design — anywhere on the planet — we could sow the seeds of a materials economy that mimicked the elegance and effectiveness of nature.
And so, we built Materiom — initially a digital ‘recipe book’ showcasing materials made from ingredients abundant in the natural world. And what started as an experimental biomaterials library is now a 6,000-strong community of collaborators.
This requires strategic collaboration between the designers and artists who shape materials aesthetics, the material scientists and chemists who understand material performance, the biologists and ecologists who understand natural ecosystems, and the businesses who get new materials to market. We need to build bridges between these disciplines to accelerate innovation and transform the materials market. And we need to do it at speed.
The next years of Materiom’s development are focused on catalysing change at scale. Combining the power of open-access collaboration with best-in-class AI, we want to demystify and elevate the world of biomaterials; to unlock a new system that makes it easier to produce materials that are truly regenerative and have a net positive impact on the planet.
You can read our vision for the future and how we plan to help shape this reality here.
