# Challenging the Biomimetic Promise 2.0: Negative Spillover of Bio-Inspired Versus Sustainability Framing on Public Perceptions of Bio-Inspired Technologies

## TL;DR

This study shows that highlighting a technology's biological inspiration can reduce its perceived sustainability, challenging the idea that nature-based designs are always seen as more eco-friendly.

## Contribution

The study introduces a new psychometric scale to measure public perception of bio-inspired technologies and reveals a negative spillover between bio-inspiration and sustainability framing.

## Key findings

- Bio-inspired framing reduced perceived sustainability of a self-shading façade.
- Sustainability framing reduced perceived bio-inspiration of the same technology.
- Laypeople view bio-inspiration and sustainability as distinct and potentially conflicting concepts.

## Abstract

This study investigates how bio-inspired versus sustainability-focused framing influences lay evaluations of a specific bio-inspired building-technology scenario, testing the empirical validity of the so-called “biomimetic promise”. Employing a between-subjects experimental design (N=582), we examined assessments of a weather-responsive self-shading façade across bio-inspired, sustainable, and neutral framing conditions. We developed and validated the 12-item Perceived Bio-Inspiration Scale (PBS)—a novel standardized psychometric instrument designed to quantify lay recognition of biomimetic features across visual, intentional, and naturalistic dimensions. While results showed robust direct framing effects, we identified a significant negative spillover: emphasizing biological inspiration significantly reduced the technology’s perceived sustainability, while sustainability framing diminished its perceived bio-inspiration. These findings demonstrate, in this façade context, that laypersons evaluate bio-inspiration and sustainability as cognitively distinct and potentially competing constructs, indicating that “natural-is-better” bias is not universal across all technology domains. Consequently, merely invoking biological origins is insufficient to enhance a technology’s ecological appeal. To foster public trust, science communication should shift from abstract biological metaphors toward a performance-driven communication strategy that prioritizes the disclosure of verifiable life-cycle assessment and specific operational advantages over symbolic nature-based analogies.