INNOVATOR 2021 — Evolved By Nature
About the Innovator
Evolved By Nature is a biotechnology company creating powerful, sustainable molecules from natural, renewable resources. We believe that the next generation of products will advance the health of people and the planet, and we’re innovating new molecules to make those products a reality today.
Evolved By Nature was founded in 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts by Dr. Gregory Altman and Dr. Rebecca Lacouture, who hold PhD’s in biotechnology engineering and biomedical engineering, respectively. The company is a diverse group of scientists, researchers, textile and leather experts, farmers, and creative professionals, drawn together to create a healthier, sustainable future.
Biotechnology has the potential to solve the environmental issues faced by nearly every industry, helping to build a truly circular economy. And it can do this not by competing with nature, but by unlocking some of nature’s most elegant and hidden chemistry. At Evolved By Nature, we use a proprietary process called “noviculture” – technology cultivating new, natural systems – to bioharvest molecules that have existed invisible in nature for thousands of years. We then design them to achieve a wide array of performance benefits that are normally achieved through the use of petrochemicals and other harmful chemistries.
The way that products have been made in modern history has relied heavily on chemicals that are destroying the planet. By finding and innovating new molecules, we can provide an entirely new set of tools and building blocks to produce a future in which people and the planet can thrive.
About the Innovation
Innovation in Design Process (including product digitization)
Activated Silk™ biotechnology – our current sustainable molecule platform – is bioharvested from natural, renewably sourced silk protein. After liquefying the silk protein, we extract powerful and versatile molecules – designing them to accomplish a wide array of performance benefits. Within the fashion and textiles industries, we use Activated Silk™ biotechnology to create sustainable chemicals that can replace many of the harmful finishing agents currently used to create apparel.
Activated Silk™ takes product development beyond the limits of petrochemistry, reduces reliance on harmful chemicals, builds sustainable supply chains, increases product performance potential, and helps build a truly circular economy. Activated Silk™ is nontoxic, biocompatible, and biodegradable.
Unlike petrochemical and silicone finishing chemicals, Activated Silk™ doesn’t interfere with recyclability or harmfully persist in the environment. And it’s helping to ensure that toxic finishing agents become a part of fashion’s history, instead of a necessary part of its present.
The next generation of products needs to incorporate human health and nature positivity as absolute benchmarks. Circularity is a necessary system to get us there, but it's a hollow goal unless it encompasses a hard look at the toxicity of all additives and chemical systems used to make a product, and the human and environmental impacts of a product's full life cycle as a result of those chemicals.