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E4: Maurizio Montalti - Unravelling the potential of mycelium
88 Plays6 months ago
In this episode, we dive into the world of mycelium-based innovation with Maurizio Montalti. Working at the junction of design and biotech, Maurizio is one of the early pioneers committed to the study and development of mycelium-based technologies and products.
He is Founder and Director of the design-research practice Officina Corpuscoli (NL), and Chief Mycelium Officer and co-Founder of SQIM, a (bio)technology company unravelling the potential of mycelium for application across different industries, including interior design, architecture, the automotive and fashion.
Montalti’s work has been honoured with multiple awards, featured widely in the global media, and globally exhibited in prestigious museums and institutions, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Paris’s Centre Pompidou and the Design Museum in London.
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Transcript
Introduction to Mycelium Innovation
00:00:06
Speaker
In this episode we dive into the world of mycelium based innovation with Maurizio Montauti. Working at the junction of design and biotech, Maurizio is one of the early pioneers committed to the study and development of mycelium based technologies and products.
00:00:22
Speaker
He is founder and director of the design research practice Ofacena Corpuscoli and chief Mycelium officer and co-founder of SCIM, a biotechnology company unraveling the potential of Mycelium for application across different industries, including interior design, architecture, the automotive and fashion.
Understanding Mycelium and Fungi
00:00:43
Speaker
Montauti's work has been honored with multiple awards, featured widely in the global media and globally exhibited in prestigious museums and institutions.
00:00:52
Speaker
including New York's Museum of Modern Arts, Paris's Centre Pompadou and the Design Museum in London. This is Ecosystems, the podcast driven by the question, what's happening in this new era of sustainability? I'm Toby Carpenter, and I hope you enjoy the episode.
00:01:12
Speaker
And so you you work primarily with fungi and mycelium and fungal organisms. So what exactly is mycelium for those that haven't come across the material? And what makes it a particularly attractive material to work with and for sustainable design?
00:01:28
Speaker
First of all, thanks for having me here today, Toby. Allow me just to spend a few words about the incredible kingdom of fungi. Again, fungi are a kingdom on their own, the fifth kingdom, and I want to specify that because there's still people out there, unfortunately, that consider fungi as a plant organisms.
00:01:49
Speaker
Vegetable organisms, they are not. In fact, they are much closer to humans than to plants. Let's think about the fact that, for instance, fungi breathe in oxygen and emits CO2. Very low amount of CO2. CO2 is not a bad word in this in this case. And though differently from humans, for instance, ah were whether we humans insert ah food in our bodies in order to nourish our organisms,
00:02:16
Speaker
and keep it active and alive, fungi insert their bodies in the food in order to degrade it and eventually derive all the nutritious contents that sustain their own life and the life of all the other organisms that they connect to.
Mycelium in Industries
00:02:34
Speaker
So fundamentally, ah before coming to mycelium and just keeping ah keeping on reflecting about fungi and their fundamental role in the ecosystem, fungi allow us to realize that processes that are rooted in decomposition and cyclical transformations are key to deciphering how to encounter regeneration and rebirth. That's what they do.
00:02:58
Speaker
in the ecosystem. They are the great decomposers, the great disassemblers, and then there go cycles of decomposition and transformation of all ah dead and organic matter. Think about, ah for instance, fallen tree branches in the forest, leaves and the likes. Well, if there wouldn't be fungi out there to digest those, ah the forest would be just a great mass of litter, organic litter that would keep stratifying ah layer upon layer.
00:03:26
Speaker
Furthermore, without fungi, the world, as we know it, would not exist. ah For instance, fungi are the agents that create ecosystems. They underpin life on Earth. And from an evolutionary perspective, though would be there would have been no possibility for life to move from water to land if it would have not been for fungi. Without fungi, there would be no forest to walk walk in. Often, and i I quote, I don't remember exactly whom, but fungi can be defined as the circulatory system of the planet as opposed to trees being the lungs because in fact there are information highways and nutrient highways for the soil ecosystem.
00:04:10
Speaker
ah Furthermore, herbivores such as cows would not exist. they Think about ah fungi in the gut of certain mammals that break down the nutrition they feed on. ah Fermented rings such as beer, wine and the likes would not exist, coffee, chocolate and so on and so forth. The list goes way longer. So um fundamentally fungi, and that's another important part, are our our ah biological ancestors.
00:04:36
Speaker
And they've been around for much longer than we humans have been on this planet. as's In fact, it is estimated that to um the the kingdom fungi emerged approximately 1 billion years ago, plants around 500 million years ago, and we humans barely.
00:04:53
Speaker
300,000 years ago. So this gives us a little bit of of an idea about how fundamentally interdependent we are as in relation to those organisms. And when it comes to defining what mycelium is for the ones that do not know about it, well, the mycelium is the fungus. So ah in English, language is easy to differentiate between the organism and the fruit that the organism creates in order to propagate itself because we call the fungus the organism and we call the mushroom the the reproductive body of that organism. So fundamentally the mushroom for which fungi are mostly known for is simply just ah the fruit as the apple is the fruit of of a large organism that is
00:05:42
Speaker
tree, an apple tree, the fruit of a much, much larger organism that is to be found not on top of the soil and that's why it's not so well known but in fact it stays mostly often hidden ah in the soil um with its massive presence and it fundamentally consists ah of ah filamentous ah tubular cells and I want to underline tubular because very often people look at and Fungal cells as if they would be microscopic yarns, threads, no they're not threads, they're in fact channels where information and nutrients are channeled and ah each single um let's say tube is called IFA and many IFA.
00:06:24
Speaker
together create and an interconnected network almost similarly looking to a neural network that is in fact the the mycelium which is very much ah ah what could be considered very much of it ah a web of life animating life in the ecosystem and beyond.
00:06:45
Speaker
And the mycelium has incredible skills when it comes to its capacity to interact with all the other non-human agents ah and beings that are present in the solar system.
00:06:59
Speaker
I know over the last few years since we last spoke, have there been any your your level of understanding and the industry's level of understanding of mycelium, has there been has it been an exponential growth in terms of the the level of detail and the understanding you have of mycelium now, or has it been a slow journey? Much has happened during the past few years. It's a continuous progression, I can tell you, almost on a day-to-day basis.
00:07:24
Speaker
I can tell this for what concerns the activities we we carry on with as part of both the studio, but particularly the company and our advanced R&D
Skim's Role in Mycelium Development
00:07:36
Speaker
objectives. ah Nevertheless, of course, no matter the daily progression, still it is interesting ah to to keep working in this domain because, um as I said, results are never that deterministic ah and sometimes you get surprised and you get puzzled and that's exactly the the fascinating part of encountering the complexity of but ah biology even if it challenges you so absolutely i can tell you as a matter of fact that we spoke few years ago i don't remember exactly how many
00:08:13
Speaker
But since then, we came to being capable of so standardizing to a ah much greater extent our the growth of our raw material, for instance, for what concerns their ah structural integrity, the way in which the IT are organized in order to provide a certain type of behavior and for a finished application, therefore being able to inform the growth of the material based on the specifics the specifications that the final product demands for, ah as well as the overall homogeneity.
00:08:48
Speaker
of ah such such materials and their reactivity to processes that often happen in downstream when you take a raw material and you transform ah and or finish it into a finished article to be used in everyday applications. And this is a pretty important aspect also to consider because um it's ah it's, I think, clear that when you grow a material, you're not having necessarily a final product. You are having a biologically raw piece of something, yeah ah whether already in the form of a product or in the form of a flat ah panel or whatever is the output, ah that eventually needs to be subjected to further treatments and or other technologies in order to be vehicleed in society through the market, provided the the need of the market of
00:09:47
Speaker
having specific specific type of but ah requirements ah when it comes, for instance, to the look, the touch and feel, the durability, and so on and so forth. ah And that means that it's key to consider, let's say, at least two main technological pillars, whether biofabrication is one, therefore the biological growth of the material is very important to understand how that influences the nature of the downstream processes. So it's a continuously big loop the one between biological growth and, say, finishing transformation, as if you don't understand your starting material, your raw 100% organic myial material in its ah in its, I want to say, almost DNA in a metaphorical way. So, ah let's say, in depth, when it comes to its composition, it's very difficult to derive an understanding of the processes so that you can bring about for an effective transformation.
00:10:44
Speaker
And I know you're co-founder of Mogu and also Skimm. How would you introduce Mogu and Skimm? And skim and how do how does the work of both companies intersect with one another?
00:10:55
Speaker
In fact, the the company was born as Mobu in 2015, but as it has been recently renamed Skim. And Skim is now, let's say, their company and they and you can say that the biotech holding ah that powers up two verticals, which are Mobu and the Affair. There is also another entity today.
00:11:18
Speaker
So essentially what scheme is, well, it's ah it's a biotech and biomaterials company that serves those two business lines and brands. F.A. and Morgan. I'll tell you in a minute about those two. What we do as scheme fundamental is to prove that it is possible to actively collaborate with nature and in this case with fungi with with microbes to deliver performance-driven, high-quality products that derive from generative or regenerative biological processes. And we do so through an active partnership with fungi to biofabricate innovative materials and and product categories, so entirely new classes of materials that can contribute to harmonize human-driven activities
00:12:04
Speaker
with the rhythms and functioning of the ecosystem, always starting from the valorization of but residues or low-value matters from other value chains such as the agro-industry, the manufacturing industry, what often gets defined as waste. We don't consider it waste, we uptake such ah low-value materials and we transform them through tailored fermentation-based processes in order to engineer and structure a variety of materials that are suitable for different applications so you can say this came finally is the beating heart of of the ah company because that's where technologies get developed and de demonstrated at the early stage on a large scale to then once validated be passed to the.
00:12:52
Speaker
the related business lines that are responsible for the industrialization, the rough. So today, in fact, our offering is already benefiting, as I said, multiple industry industries. And this is addressed through ah today to vertical um entities to business science to brands when is good mobile and when is the first ah that came about and that's where we deliver to market the biocomposite products that derive again from the fermentation.
Applications in Fashion and Interior Design
00:13:27
Speaker
solid-state fermentation of agricultural biomass, and these products are mainly dedicated to interior design, interior architecture, and we are talking about acoustic tiles, decorative tiles, flooring products, and so on. On the other side, we have also in more recent years developed a new business line that is progressing and growing in a very promising way, that we called FAER, E-P-H-E-A, FAER. And with FAER, what we do is to deliver unprecedented, let me say, flexible mycelium materials to the market. ah In this case, we are not talking about composite products that contain both plant biomass and ah fungal biomass, mycelium.
00:14:13
Speaker
But we are talking about raw materials that are 100% mycelium biomass. They are soft products, something for you to see on camera, such as this. Now this is a very small sample that eventually gets transformed into finished products for applications today, primarily in fashion, in automotive, in interior.
00:14:34
Speaker
And in this case well they're often described as and alternative leathers, mycelium leathers, mushroom leathers. This is not correct ah despite the fact that of course it makes clear what is the benchmark for the market but this is not leather, it's not an animal derived product, it's a product again um that is constantly of which of the main constituents are not for instance elements such as collagen ah this is a kiting based material so we are talking about something completely different and also expressing different opportunities and different functionalities not to mention of course about the the
00:15:18
Speaker
great performance when it comes to the carbon footprint of a product, its life cycle and all aspects related to, and duly quantified related to ah life cycle assessments when it comes to CO2 equivalent emissions, land occupation.
00:15:33
Speaker
energy inputs, water usage, and so on. So embedding multiple advantages from an environmental ah perspective, and that is true both for mobile and fair, without though compromising on quality. Meaning, first of all, a product that delivers what it promises to deliver in terms of technical properties, but also without compromising on aesthetics and touch and feel, which are very important aspects for our reference markets.
00:16:00
Speaker
You referenced that ah the fashion industry and also interior design and and and architecture. Are the people in those industries and the companies in those industries that are interested in and working and utilizing these sort of materials, do they tend to be smaller businesses with independent fashion designers or interior designers that have just got that curiosity to explore new materials or are they bigger companies that are interested in and maybe large-scale manufacturing using the these materials? Or is there a bit of both?
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely a bit of both. I mean, from small entities to be colossus, the interest in the past few years ah skyrocketed and with a complicity positive complicity of the press that made, ah let's say, all things fungi becoming almost a trend. And I'm not sure this is a positive thing. Of course, it has positive implications, but that also brought about a lot of um misinformation.
00:17:02
Speaker
ah in the sense that, of course, when treated superficially, those technologies in the way in which they are discussed, ah they can... and Let's say that the press has been also responsible for diffusing deceiving ah messages and also bringing about, ah as powered by, of course, some players, ah bringing about a little bit of a... sensation and unsubstiti unsubstantiated fundamentally by facts and this of course contributed to create to let's say some entropy and some background noise that eventually stemmed or risked to stem in a sort of but ah bias because of course there was a message being delivered of something already
00:17:52
Speaker
um established and present versus the fact that of course what we and other entities and people are doing is a journey and is a journey of innovation that requires time that already today delivers um suitable products but as in any journey.
Challenges in Mycelium Adoption
00:18:11
Speaker
that it is composed by incremental steps ah for keeping improving the state of art of what your product ah truly is so for us it's been extremely important in this years to always speak in a very frank concrete and honest way about.
00:18:27
Speaker
what our technologies truly enable and what our materials and products are truly about without fantasizing or or ah or approaching it approaching our communication as in a more typical American way ah with the fake it till you make it type of approach. Which of course does not bring benefits to the to society and maybe brings benefits to the companies playing this game on a short-term basis. But in the long run, and we have seen this also now with all new regulations, particularly in the EU coming up and new legislations regulating, in fact, also these typologies of technologies, materials and products, now the the the framework is becoming ever more stringent than, of course,
00:19:17
Speaker
compliance to messages that correspond to facts ah ah is becoming ever more um relevant and that's of course very important but they can tell you as a matter of fact that we have been receiving an enormous amount of interest and we have been growing the market.
00:19:35
Speaker
we are certainly still growing the market is still a small piece of the market but we are actively selling today whether it's about mobile and therefore ah products dedicated to interior that we mostly sell would to be approached to. um Let's say contractors to the mediation of architects but that's a little bit how how we work here as a business model.
00:20:00
Speaker
ah or if we're talking about if they are talking about the incredible interest that has manifested from ah luxury fashion holdings big global groups that have under their umbrella ah the most noticeable ah fashion brands luxury fashion brands ah one among many carrying that's not only has been our partner in this journey.
00:20:26
Speaker
ah also in order to bring about our innovation to market, also through a core collaboration we we did with Balenciaga through which we launched some product, ah a long coat developed by Balenciaga at the end of 2022 commercially in stores. But also talking about caring as an entity that eventually invested in the company, as in fact we successfully um closed ah a series around at the beginning of of this year of twenty twenty four Also with the key participation of the caring group now that testified that how relevant is the work we are doing for the markets of reference we are working with them for um so the interest is definitely super high we have been in in in touch and we are
00:21:18
Speaker
selling and or collaborating with the countless um prestigious actors out there so our customers so which are different brands ah in this case ah yet of course ah one thing is the enthusiasm based on the narrative.
00:21:36
Speaker
ah and what the product embeds when when it comes to the storytelling, characterizing it. Another thing is to be able to comply effectively ah to all the stringent requirements that each and every brand has.
00:21:53
Speaker
And such requirements are very specific to to each related entity, ah particularly if you are working in luxury. Let's say we're you're talking them to to counterparts who are rather sophisticated and ah demanding. And therefore, um it's important also to notice ah how this type of relation goes, ah talking about the fact that it's all rooted in innovation, goes a little bit beyond the typical uh supplier customer relation but in fact ah often it turns into um co-development processes where in fact you you carry on again investigative trajectories research-based trajectories with the different brands in order to have your products effectively coming to market and let's say that brands
00:22:47
Speaker
so considering particularly in fashion, the fact that at this moment, luxury fashion is experiencing what they define a little bit of a crisis, tend to be very cautious, no matter how much they care for the the responsibility they want their final products to to embed. They are very cautious in going beyond the status quo. And this is what we are actively and collaboratively working on with such a and And the drivers of interest from these industries to fashion and interior design and architecture, do they stem from an increased demand for from consumers for for these materials? or Or do they stem from a desire from these companies to be more sustainably minded? Or are they perhaps just driven by the inherent properties of the material, regardless of how eco-friendly or regenerative it might be?
00:23:43
Speaker
Certainly, environmental impacts, CO2 reduction, emissions reduction, and so on are key drivers for for companies to today, ah also because they have to implement a proper ESG policy. ah And so, it's as I said earlier, I mentioned about the fact that the legislation is becoming ever more stringent.
00:24:05
Speaker
And therefore, it's becoming almost ah an obligation, identifying alternatives to the way you used to do stuff, whether we are talking about sourcing of materials, whether we are talking about how you manufacture manufacture a product, ah or again, which new material categories could be could be considered for traditional products, if we look in fashion, I don't know, you're ready to wear in leather boots or so on.
00:24:33
Speaker
um So, there are we can differentiate, of course, each actor is very specific, but we can differentiate certainly between customers that are progressing through this journey without with us also out of will because they truly believe ah that the changes needed and they started deploying strategies internally with very clear and strict deadlines ah for for reducing massively their impact on the planet and the Caring Group is certainly bringing the flag of this movement ah ah so and that's also certainly a reason why we we we got in we got to like each other
00:25:17
Speaker
ah very much in time and and we became more than friends in fact partners and family ah today. um There are brands that do that simply out of need and of course what often um is a little bit of a dilemma ah is that okay there is this initial fascination for bio-fabricated materials the fascination for their origin for the process from which they derive And for their uniqueness let me say ah when working with the biological process and I'm not now saying in a in a industrial setting but even let's say.
00:25:56
Speaker
ah more if we are looking at at the origin of this adventure which started as ah as a design experiment somehow you could say. ah You start to appreciate very much the qualities of what emerges in its uniqueness. A uniqueness that is determined by certain morphologies that appear and that make each piece different from another piece.
00:26:21
Speaker
rather than by the autonomy of the process to just provide you with suggestions without you forcing it and to to to to to manifest in a specific way now of course this is not the case when it comes to standardizing and scaling up the technology industry speaking.
00:26:37
Speaker
um And mostly often, considering again the the andnov innovative approach, there is nevertheless the will to obtain an output that that correspond corresponds to the status quo, ah which is a little bit of a contradiction because it means not embracing the inherent qualities of that innovation.
00:27:00
Speaker
So considering innovation, not as such, but just as replacement. Not considering a new material, a new class of materials that must be worked with according to what it expresses, but willing to treat it, imagine a long manufacturing, as any other material you've been always working with.
Production and Scalability of Mycelium
00:27:20
Speaker
So that results in ah in a typical rather difficult set of requests in some cases where brands ask for the impossible. Let me say at first, and let's say top technical performance from a technical mechanical standpoint, top environmental performance,
00:27:39
Speaker
a seamless narrative and immediate availability of large volume slow pricing and dimensional scale up as as if that would be happening in a matter of a click and of course it's not possible to achieve it all in such a short term again it's a journey um but.
00:28:00
Speaker
And particularly even when you respond go to the needs of of your customers and say that you're dealing with an industry now for instance i'm referencing ah to to fashion.
00:28:13
Speaker
that ah where where some actors are more aware, more prepared, they're more and more reasonable. ah Others are just ah victim of the functioning of that industry, that is a fast-paced industry ah that makes the relationship rather schizophrenic, also because requests change from day to night. And when you're dealing with biology,
00:28:36
Speaker
this is not the time frame you're dealing with because any kind of change you introduce in your process in order to be validated requires an enormous amount of experiments, repetitions, variations of parameters or accurate studies that can require months if not years in order to come to validation and be moved on to the new standard in production.
00:28:59
Speaker
So again it's about finding a good balance with the right players that can embrace again what in and understand what innovation is all about. So for example if I was like a and and head of a a small fashion company and then I came to you for a request for a Mycelium bag and I wanted it to be made, what would be the the process of doing that?
00:29:24
Speaker
We receive a lot of of requests from relatively small brands and we do not discriminate yet, of course, we need to evaluate where we are at at this moment. So consider that like any technology, a technology in order to to be scaled up to come to, let's say, the full commercial scale needs to go through steps. So you always start from a lab-based, a lab-scale process that eventually you need to validate in an industry relevant environment so to say let's say a pilot production, a pilot scale plant, which is what we have put together today and that we have been also expanding recently in terms of its volumes output. ah But nevertheless here we are talking still about not even a drop in the ocean.
00:30:13
Speaker
Today we have a plant that can deliver um several thousand square meters of materials a year, and several thousand meters of of bat materials a year, while compared to ah the the activities I used to conduct in the studio are a lot, but looking at the market are very, very little. um And therefore, that is one reason why we, in fact,
00:30:35
Speaker
went ahead looking for funding and investments and new partners and so on. We closed this round with the main scope among other destination of the funding as well, but with the main scope of investing in a new plant, which will be a demo plant, the following step to a pilot plant, a demo plant that will um say implement more virtuous processes when it comes to the efficiency of of production by also ah introducing aspects, very relevant aspects related to automation, for instance, as well as to key quality control steps that today, of course, we already practice, but they are all activities that are sub-optimized from the point of view of effectiveness and efficiency because they require a lot of manual labor
00:31:25
Speaker
and the flows can be certainly improved. So this is what we've been doing in this in this past year while also fundraising, designing our new plant that we are now finally, ah we started implementing.
00:31:43
Speaker
ah in order to be truly able to ah demonstrate the the the goodness of our technology at industrial scale, which is not only in terms of volumes increase, it's about, ah again, in terms of efficiency, and it's about in terms it's also about ah cost reduction ah effectively. ah Because that's, as we are talking about the market, that's what you need to be able to to ensure.
00:32:12
Speaker
that your process is not ah costing you too much and that therefore the final pricing can be acceptable for the market and i can tell you as a matter of fact even with the pilot plans. Today we are ready working very reasonably in the real world.
00:32:27
Speaker
with the real market maybe with a little bit of a plus compared to traditional materials but that is normal provided at the scale yet the demo will be able to deliver materials which benchmark with existing if we look at the benchmark with leather with existing quality materials that are
Environmental Impact and Regulation
00:32:46
Speaker
deriving.
00:32:46
Speaker
from from animals. Of course once the demo will be validated there will be a further step that will be the implementation of a fully commercial plant and there will be talking about millions of square meters a year and there is where the market penetration will become much more effective but we are talking about a time frame from now of at least four years I would say before the commercial plant would be there.
00:33:12
Speaker
On circular and sustainable design principles, at SCIM and in your other practices, do you integrate that throughout your entire life cycle of the product from conception to disposal?
00:33:24
Speaker
hundred percent. This is actually what we are what what we are rooted in. ah And it's interesting because even within our production processes, which most generally tend to be quite efficient and therefore we do not produce really waste, but there are occurrences where you might have some glitches in the process. It's interesting because the same biomass that cannot be used for obtaining a material can be used once again to be circle back in in our process in given ratios supplementation to more.
00:33:57
Speaker
let's say pure substrates and so on, ah in order to function as nutrient itself but for new cultures to grow on. Or this happens even within um the take-back scheme that we are implementing for products such as the flooring line, which has one typology of product, the MogulFlex, which is not based on fungi, but based on green chemistry and highly bio-based compounds, so it's a highly bio-based.
00:34:23
Speaker
uh, flooring, uh, role, uh, so to say. And, uh, and in this case, we are, uh, we have been working and hopefully soon we'll be launching the take-back scheme will be where we'll be able to, after the use of the product, say a five, 10 or more years, flooring, unfortunately tends to be changed quite often. Uh, we can take back the material and utilize it, grind it down and utilize it once again for the for supplementing the formulation and the and the production of new roles. ah So this is certainly, circularity is is our origin. And it's what we breathe on a daily basis. Yet when you look at, to you that there is, of course, a little bit of a difficulty always when you look at the optimum you want to reach. Again, we focus on the origin.
00:35:14
Speaker
ah so Again, where the material is born from. It's a fully organic natural process of biological growth. It's fermentation of below value substrates with specific fungi cultures that give life to 100% natural, 100% biodegradable, 100% bio-based materials in a raw stage.
00:35:34
Speaker
Eventually, the materials to become products need to be transformed or some finishing steps need to be applied. This is also the case for for our interior products when it comes to the acoustic ah collection. And that means that in order to become product, ah they they they your artifact, that let's call it like that at that point, ah needs to have certain properties in order to obtain certain certifications, to name one. um Fire resistance class, which is kind of fundamental ah in order to be able to make the product commercially viable in public spaces or in offices or in theaters or or in retails or so on.
00:36:21
Speaker
and It's true that fungi are natural fire retardants and much has been has been said about it. But according to international standards, ah they would fall in a class that would not be suitable for, in fact, this type of applications in public spaces. How come? but Why not? Why would they not fall into that?
00:36:44
Speaker
oh It's just the specific the specific way in which the standards function and it's about, I mean, mycelium prevents the flame to to be diffused along, let's say, the surface and the volume, but to it should also self extinguish eventually. So it should not burn at all. And so there is a certain speed of of burning that gets measured.
00:37:08
Speaker
And let's say with a natural 100% residue material, ah you would come to a class D, while for being ah ah utilized in a commercial environment, your product requires a class B. And we identified a solution that is in fact not that.
00:37:27
Speaker
problematic, it's not toxic, but it's ah it's based on, again, responsible ingredients that contributes as a coating together with the color, which is a water-based color, of making the product falling into class B affected. But but once again, of course, you have been introducing through the color, through the fire retardant, and through ah the eventual finishing you're putting on your product,
00:37:56
Speaker
other technologies, other materials, which cannot be disassembled. Yet you can use, and we already have validated that you can use, let's say, a panel after it's being dismissed, you can grind it back and you can use it again as a feed for the cultures and they grow very well. So you can grow new panels out of it.
00:38:14
Speaker
But if I would tell you that at the end of life this product is 100% biodegradable, it's not anymore from the point of view of standards. The same applies to a material such as, again, what I described before. Today we have, but for instance, very small pieces here on my table.
00:38:35
Speaker
ah but large panels of materials that we are selling that are used for fashion, the so-called alternative leather, flexible material for clothing, for for bags, and so on and so forth.
00:38:46
Speaker
And ah yet what we are mounting on the raw mass of your material in the downstream part in the transformation process are technologies that are irreversible. And it's, ah again, what is called green chemistry, but still it's chemistry, which means that, of course, what used to be 100% natural material is transformed it into something that ah can withstand the proof of time and therefore can be durable because that is another key aspect of sustainability but nevertheless preventing ah the
00:39:26
Speaker
the virtual end of life of the product. So today we are researching actively and we are keeping progressing ah processes and or alternative ingredients that could still provide to the product a certain integrity ah and performances.
00:39:44
Speaker
but without compromising again the end of life. This is the Oligrae. This is what we are looking for and many, not to say everybody else is looking for. The point becomes at some point, ah how could a society, ah could we shift ah from an idea of but a product that needs to be eternal versus a product that could be programmed?
00:40:13
Speaker
to in fact fulfill its function in a certain time frame and then eventually you know be be be suitable for for transforming into new life, for degrading, for becoming nutrient. And that's a little bit of the of the great dilemma again. Everybody wants the both, but unfortunately, we do not have yet unraveled technologies that can allow us to obtain the both. Again, long lasting performing products that ah can be fully degradable at the end of life and yet considered of high quality. As in fact, typically,
00:40:50
Speaker
Organic products are considered by the industry of low quality and therefore less preferable because too susceptible to variations and changes and degradation in a short time. So it's always about finding a good ratio fundamentally. What are your thoughts on the current regulations and legislations around the industries and the ones that affect you? Are they helpful or are they being determined? Do you agree with them? Do you think they need to be changed? What are your general thoughts on the legislations out there?
00:41:19
Speaker
There is a positive progression ah in terms of legislations ah that regulate also these new category of products. And it's important and we are contributing to it, in fact, trying to inform as much of as we can policymakers in order to really provide you know real life through ah case scenarios.
00:41:41
Speaker
and And in this sense, ah well, the problem is that the regulation has started being proposed also in regard to the way in which products must be talked about in a substantiated way for what they are. So this is actually what we have been promoting since our since our beginning. So we are very happy about that happening, even if it would become ever more stringent also on us, but in order to introduce rules that allow everybody to behave in the same way and therefore play the same game, ah that would be certainly a positive. Generally, we are not reliant on the positives that could emerge from new policies ah simply because you cannot wait for policymakers to create a framework that is and possibly happening to be in favor
00:42:34
Speaker
of what you're doing, but we are certainly looking forward to to see this manifesting. At the same time, there are great contradictions also when it comes, for instance, to the nature of biofabricated product because ah today, fundamentally, there's no regulatory significant regulatory or policy barriers in commercializing any innovation, for instance, similar to ours, for us or for anybody else. And that's one could say, oh, that's great. Then you can do what you want. Well, no, that's not so great, first of all, because the market needs to be regulated to play the same the same league.
00:43:13
Speaker
ah and um Of course, this has also an impact on the way in which you can get your product certified from an environmental standpoint. nor with No policy means ah that you have an impact on the EPD and the environmental product declaration.
00:43:33
Speaker
ah For that today you cannot you cannot file for instance for your materials because there is no existing pcr product category rule. Based on your innovative materials that in fact then gets categorized as textiles or leather but they're not.
00:43:50
Speaker
ah they they they they go beyond any categorization. And that means that ah ah you can have, again, the lack of a classification in terms of product category rule hampers the process of obtaining the the environmental product classification. And therefore, it becomes risky to publish life cycle assessments, because life cycle assessments, which are Tools developed for evaluating specific products then get to be used comparatively with other materials and products from other innovators or from other industries and when used comparatively. If there's not the same rules applying to one or two the other innovation.
00:44:38
Speaker
That means that different companies, different entities can work with different inputs and different boundaries. Say, when we do our SCA, we really push to go back to the field, even if we are not the ones growing the crop, but we need to account, even if it's a byproduct, for how much water, how much soil occupation and so on, has been necessary for that byproduct to come to us.
00:45:02
Speaker
And we do know that many other industries don't do that. And that's, for instance, the case when you come and and compare. And LCA studies conducted in very different ways, say between 100 percent synthetic polymeric material versus 100 percent renewable process.
00:45:22
Speaker
and having as a result the renewable process ah performing worse than the synthetic material, which is of course a counter-sense. It's important of course that that this progression in ah in in terms of policy development and implementation continues effectively because it will allow for some more clarity and also for some more trust ah Because that's where we try to gather trust from our customers and and we obtain that as based on data not as based on claims and it's about substantiating your claims through effective information and data.
00:46:03
Speaker
that are not just provided by you by by third parties that scrutinize you in order to produce, say, said LCA study, that you enter a mutual, respectful and and and and entrusted relationship that allows for progressing while with the customer. Are relevant policymakers, are they aware of the issues that you highlighted? Certainly they are. Are they interested in in trying to solve them?
Brand Collaboration and Market Strategy
00:46:29
Speaker
Is that something on their ah agenda Absolutely. This is on the agenda. It just takes the time that it takes that usually accounts for more than several years. It's really interesting stuff. I have some questions about um marketing and branding and one of the questions I have
00:46:48
Speaker
was about the the strategies used to engage customers and potential customers of the the benefits of the products that you make and the services that you have. Are there any that you've found to be particularly useful? how how do you How do you engage? How do you go about that process? Well, first of all, we we let our ah products speak.
00:47:11
Speaker
ah That is what we focused on, particularly until not long ago. ah We had a very limited amount of resources. Our efforts in terms of um branding activities, marketing and communication and so on, well, it's been more pronounced for what concerns MOGU, but certainly very limited for what concerns EFEA, despite the high, high relevance of EFEA. And this simply because, provided the resources we had available, we decided to ah focus them on product development, on making the product being a product, not on talking about something we didn't have. ah This is something that is changing now, is in fact, now we are revamping our brand image and we'll be launching it.
00:47:52
Speaker
ah soon also our new channels and a new fresh brand identity and all the activities related to it including of course marketing and communication plans, editorial plans that we go along and so on and different related activities.
00:48:07
Speaker
But again, the focus has been on the product. ah That means that it's the product that is the icebreaker at first, because when you take it in your hands and you experience it, you understand it as some that plus. Somebody from Caring on stage at the conference defined it that I don't know what. It has that special feeling and ingredient that makes you understand that that's a very high quality product.
00:48:36
Speaker
that it can be delivered. that And we have demonstrated consistency along production. We have been always making, committing to certain promises and we have been fulfilling that promises. So it's also about, again, being ah honest to yourself in the moment in which you take commitments. And more than that, and I take back what I was suggesting earlier, it's about investing in the collaboration.
00:49:00
Speaker
As I said, it's rare to have a very simple relationship to supply your customer at this stage yet. That means that ah often you need quite a continuous feedback loop between you and your customer ah by proactively advancing and advising as based on internal developments, including, for instance, ah not not just the biological part or the transformation part, or I want the the material to have this color or this light or be more gloss or be more matte. That's not just the only thing, but even just how you work with the material. So for instance, as part of our R and&D,
00:49:42
Speaker
We also consider pivotal prototyping activities. We are not with a fair, for instance, the flexible materials profession. We are not the the producer of the final article, say the bag or the jacket or so on. Today, our model comes until the finished material that we supply to others to make the final article. So to big brands standing on the shoulder of giants.
00:50:05
Speaker
it would be very silly for us today to start immediately a brand. Maybe in the future, who knows? ah But it's interesting because despite the expertise of such brands and of their manufacturing teams, ah there's been episodes where maybe brands are ah a little bit uncertain about how to work with the material because they say, no, it doesn't work. I don't know. The stitching doesn't work. And it's like, wait a second.
00:50:33
Speaker
I have been doing my homeworks, ah and I have been working with manufacturing entities externally or internally with different trials as part of, again, I have continuous R&D.
00:50:45
Speaker
And for us, that's what prototyping offers us. The capacity to advise but advise brands also on how to approach the material. And it's, you know, fine tricks at times that just solve what appear that first to be a major problem. um Another thing is there is a a certain, um let's say, a set of steps usually when you enter in a conversation and in an active ah collaboration.
00:51:14
Speaker
um and relation with the brand. And mostly often you, let's say, enter from the door of the sustainability team, let's say the innovation team, to then pass on to the more ah technical team, where your materials based on your specs and so on are checked, validated, and so on. And eventually,
00:51:38
Speaker
this is true particularly for fashion, the style slash design team, the art director and who works with the art director. And in that case, that's where based also, for instance, on certain requirements after the materials has been validated technically that emerged from the the design department We often need to ah go back to our drawing table, in this case could be the downstream, but could also be the biofabrication step but ah informing, therefore, the product development on the feedback received, gathering all all detailed feedback on how we could solve that, and coming back with a new article ah that can be presented again to to to the the design team, whether it's about
00:52:31
Speaker
and the the aesthetic, it's about the touch and so on and so forth. So it's about a way to respond to your question. In short, our successful strategy to engage and move forward with brands has been relying on our capacity to be open and flexible enough in regard to the continuous requests and changes that are to be found within each specific conversation.
00:52:59
Speaker
What are the the main reservations people or customers have to purchasing or working with my stadium? It's difficult to generalize. It's interesting because at some point um it becomes even less relevant, the origin. Let's say that, okay, your material is mycelium material. Well, actually, in order to go beyond any kind of hyperenthusiasm and or skepticism, ah we just like to call it a fair. Mycelium becomes almost secondary, despite the fact that it's very relevant from the point of view of, again,
00:53:32
Speaker
It's environmental performance and so on. um It's difficult to generalize because every every actor has different requirements, whether it's about, um let's say,
00:53:46
Speaker
Let's make a practical example, a customer that wants to make a bag. And therefore, the bag needs to have, depending on, again, which segment we're looking for, at so if it's in luxury, if it's in premium, or if it's in casual. Like casual today is a bit difficult to work with, they have.
00:54:05
Speaker
to small pricing to to low ah for us. But in that sense, okay, you want to make a bag if you are in luxury, it needs to be a bag that definitely must be durable. It's a bag for which a customer of their brand will pay an enormous amount of money. And it's not possible that after using it, I don't know, several months, and maybe just putting it on the table, scratching it against the wall or whatever happens in everyday use, ah that du the bag gets damaged. So in that case, you need to work, for instance, with the technology for finishing the material that allows you to make it a little bit more robust. But that, of course, contributes to ah downgrade, um let's say, the part of the biological content.
00:54:53
Speaker
And that's where you have your internal limit of pain, let's say, where you don't want to go under a certain... under a certain value, and you need to continuously balance performance with the requirement. But maybe the brand also so requires for a 95% biological content that we, of course, try to obtain. But again, it depends. Each material, depending on its properties and therefore on the technologies that it embeds, is specific ah in that sense. So there are implications. Let's say that the the cover is always that one.
00:55:28
Speaker
but if you pull it on one side or on the other, it's still the same dimension of ah of a blanket. ah So um in that sense, ah and it really depends on the um the specific requirements. There are brands that, of course, ah ah like as much as we do not to use any, not only to have materials that are ah that have zero animal content, and and our materials, of course, have no animal content whatsoever, um but also want zero plastics. And we are fully resonant with that. Yet that's another great contradiction if we think, for instance, about the usual benchmark where leather ah is a material that is often perceived as a natural material, and there are the back tans, leathers, and so on. But in reality, most of leather out there is coated with polarity.
00:56:22
Speaker
ah People probably don't know it and they think it's an natural material. Well, it's not probably depends. There's many typologies of leather, but ah quite some of those are not as natural as people may think. I mean, there's not much left. There is a substrate that used to be an animal's raw animal skin, a raw animal hide, on top of which a lot of other products have been mounted, including plastic compounds that penetrated the material and or plastic-based, synthetic-based, polyurethane-based coatings that are there to make the material ah be long-lasting. And this is, again, if we go beyond fashion, is particularly typical of automotive. All the leather that is used in the interior of cars is quite corrupted, so to say, despite being high quality. I'm not i'm not here demonizing the automotive quality.
00:57:16
Speaker
So they they are automotive sector. So that applies also to our material ah effectively. It's possible to have something like what I've been showing you earlier on camera like this that is a material with no coating whatsoever. ah Yet, of course, it's less resistant to certain stresses. So it's about identifying the right material for the right application.
00:57:40
Speaker
Have we just touched the surface of the power of mycelium and fungal organisms? well as i as i mentioned earlier we do think we are particularly advanced today in what we do. And in fact, possibly it is like that. On a global scale, there's not many that have had the opportunity to research as deeply as we did ah the the true opportunities that have manifested and are today ever more concrete through the products we deliver.
00:58:14
Speaker
ah for for in fact understanding the dynamic of growth of mycelium based materials but again I don't know what mycelium based materials means because again each material is so very specific and ours despite the fact that for instance today we have in R and&D we have put together since our beginning your final bank of 300, 350 different strains that we studied. It's quite a generous fungi bank. ah So we know about different skills of different fungi and so on. But in production, we use just a couple of those.
00:58:51
Speaker
And so your material, let's say the one that skim produces through Fea or Mogu, is fundamentally different from the material that anybody else, maybe in the States or in some other parts of the world, that industrially and speaking, produces and through their technologies, but again, through their
Future of Mycelium and Integration in Daily Life
00:59:12
Speaker
genetics. We are talking about completely different ah products fundamentally.
00:59:17
Speaker
So what we have learned is what we have learned in regard to the fungi we work with. And still, I have to to be very honest in saying, despite the what what we presenters believe to be a very advanced stage, we are still at the very early beginning. Much needs to be unraveled in regard to the way in which fungi ah manifest and work.
00:59:40
Speaker
and And I think also i am I am always a little bit fighting within myself because of course coming from a more ah design research practice and cultural based practice. ah Of course, today we need to respond to the need of the industry of standardizing materials towards goals that comply to the current functioning of the economy and of the society ah we are we are part of. But to um I do believe that the real opportunity will come at the following stage, considering this just right now a transitional stage, where we are
01:00:18
Speaker
delivering, let's say, we we are working within a system that we are trying to change by complying to the rules of the system. And that's a fundamental step. ah Yet once it will be ever more validated and and diffused, the fact that those materials, possibly not just seen as replacements, have been penetrated the market. Now, at that point, it will be time to um to really push forward the possibility of but embracing and they the but autonomy of a biological process and maybe moving away, letting go of our obsession for control over everything and and eternity ah that everything appear appears to be need to be characterized from.
01:01:15
Speaker
it's It's not about, I don't think in the longer term, it's about this this subjugation of the organism ah to your own will, ah because in fact that will fundamentally not resolve but the question that is at the origin of our practice, which is how could we humans, namely culture, come again, to embrace what it means what it means to be part of nature and to work, not just in words, but in facts, in cooperation. And cooperation means, ah you know, just embracing coming together and embracing the what what each of the parties brings into the picture without one being on top of the other.
01:02:04
Speaker
Do you live with mycelium lampshades, mycelium chairs at home? I do have at home, in fact, mycelium lampshades. I do have decorative elements, a little bit like canvases made with mycelium flexible materials. I do have fuse tools at home as well. So indeed, I do ah use those in my everyday life.
01:02:26
Speaker
And are there any other materials that you might live with on an everyday basis or that that you envisage living with on an everyday basis? and any Any materials that people may not know or be aware of? I can imagine, of course, ah you know living with algae. I don't have i have small bioreactors at home also with algae ay growing. So that's in some ways already happening. um I do have fermenting ah experiments growing at home for edible purposes. And here we are talking about you know the missiles, the kombucha and all the different fermentation methods and techniques, typical, coming from from the Asian countries. um But in terms of applicability as material, I wouldn't know exactly what to what to concentrate on, also because somehow
01:03:24
Speaker
I do believe in a future where, again, as I said, today we are living in a transitional time. I think the fascination for what we do is is rooted in um the fact that you work with the living, you work with processes that are rooted in growth and in transformation and therefore in decay. And that is what fascinates me. That is not something already there. the The possibility for a future in which everything that we surround o ourselves with but ah Without needing to come to the idea of a new primitivism that is in fact that leaving. Whether it's we're talking about a table that share a lamp or whatever else this is not the case today what what we do is often talked about is leaving materials where they're not leaving materials that they were leaving there once leaving but then we need to.
01:04:15
Speaker
again, block their growth. We need to stabilize them. We need to make them comply to the rules of the market. um And in that sense, we are losing an opportunity. ah From a point of view of connection with the cycles of nature, um as much as from practical points of view, that maybe might sound a little more sci-fi to some, but even the capacity of materials to recover themselves, when whether some stress happens and some crack happens. Imagine the house made of ah mushrooms. And so so to say, mycelium house is something we investigated in a European research project, where, ah in fact, we demonstrated the capacity of but the mycelium being kept alive as a monolithic ah cast of ah reacting to environmental conditions by informing
01:05:08
Speaker
ah through its morphological structures, the changes that happened in the environment versus self-healing itself in the moment in which cracks were happening ah provided the right environmental conditions and moisture be needed to be present for that to manifest. So these are also there are also practical implications that in fact are very fascinating and are already validated at the more experimental level.
01:05:32
Speaker
but that are certainly very far from being implemented in our everyday spaces, which in fact are conforming to our obsession with... ah control and with the cleanness, whatever cleanness means. And I'm not saying we need to go back in the dirt. ah But again, there is a middle way. So embracing the living in our everyday life ah will be possibly the biggest disruption ah that could happen along our societal development. And that is what we ah try or ready to do ah by delivering
01:06:09
Speaker
products ah that can bring us humans closer to nature in our everyday life and not just necessarily necessarily when we take a walk in the forest and when looking at nature as something out there without recognizing that it ah we are it too. Are there any great great books or resources that you'd recommend to to listeners who might be interested or or great books of resources that have been particularly influential to you?
01:06:38
Speaker
oh Well, certainly when talking about ecological perspectives, it's a rather well-known book by now, but we certainly suggest The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Tsing, talking about ecologies and fungi as and makers and are makers of ecosystems. Still on the subject fungi, a very good disseminative book that is more than well-known is Entangled Life, from Mödeli Sheldrake, who's a passionate and more than capable, super-qualified scientist and a great disseminator, where he actually manifests and explains well about the kingdom fungi and all that it can offer us.
01:07:27
Speaker
ah in collaborative terms, if only we would be able to dig deeper and instead of demonizing those organisms as it's been done for a long time. um Some other resources I would feel like suggesting, while it's an editorial project, it's another podcast as well. And it's ah um Emergence magazine as a magazine and as a podcast. ah Plenty of contexts ah that connect ah ecology,
01:07:55
Speaker
technology, spirituality, society, and that can help, um again, critically analyzing the condition in which we are living in today, as opposed to the knowledge that ah we already gathered through the attentive eyes and habits of our ancestors. Again, not willing to say that we have to go back to what used to be back then, but unfortunately, we left some very valuable stuff but on along the way.
01:08:24
Speaker
and we forgot about it. So um I think it's a very interesting set of contents one can find there. And yeah, many, many of the readings. Some other and interesting book that I am currently reading, and that in fact, I do have here, and happy to suggest about it, is Power in Minds from Laura Tripaldi, Discovering the Intelligence of Materials. It's a very small book but that can help many understanding what what it means to work with materials that derive but from a living processes rooted in microbial life, looking not just as a material, as an end, but at everything that happens at the interface, at the border of things, of spaces, of relations. And I think that is extremely stimulating.
01:09:24
Speaker
And is there is there anything I missed or any last words of wisdom that you'd like to to give? Oh, what what can we say? I think fundamentally, um I think that ah we need to start thinking and acting as a fungus and would do as a society, ah which means working for life, with life and as life, for nature, as nature and with nature.
01:09:53
Speaker
And that is what regeneration is in fact all about. ah ah It's about recognizing the capacity of everything that exists to be part of a continuous cycle of but transformation and of change. And therefore, to I think it's fundamental that as society we try and reflect individually, incrementally about letting go of our obsession for stability and and for control, ah but rather embrace the transitional nature of everything that is. And fungi are a very good example for us to look at because they fundamentally
01:10:39
Speaker
embed what, as the ultimate iconists, what transformation is is all about. Well, I just want to say thanks. Thanks for your time and and jumping on this podcast with me. Thank you. Thank you, Toby, for having me.