Sustainability

Sustainability is also a goal that our team has been pursuing. Space s uits, medical, automotive manufacturing and other aspects have been a great demand for strong toughness of materials, but many material s are also facing environmental pollution, difficult to degrade, or mec hanical strength, but tensile properties are insufficient and other pro blems. If the toughness of spider silk can be strengthened, it will save costs and do no harm to the environment. According to the 17 Sustai nable Development Goals (SDGS), as responsible IGEMer and a me mber of this world, we have identified three of them that are most rel evant to our issues and try to comply with them as much as possible.

SDG7 Affordable clean energy

Identify affordable, reliable and sustainable modern energy for all. At the same time, we also hope to reduce the production cost of prod ucts with strong toughness and good wire drawing performance, and hope that all people can afford it.

SDG11

Building inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and human co mmunities. Our products can be applied to many industries, such as space suits, t ires, medical treatment, and even bulletproof clothing, etc., and beca use spider silk is a protein, it is environmentally harmless and easy to degrade. So what are the big implications for us to build sustainable towns.

SDG12 Responsible consumption and pr oduction

Dopt sustainable consumption and production patterns. At present, there is still some doubt about the safety of spider silk, be cause of the stereotype that spiders have long been in people’s minds - poisonous. However, in fact, spider silk is silk heart protein, whic h is non-toxic, and if it can be successfully transformed and large-scal e production, the related products can penetrate into all aspects of ou r lives and bring people a lot of uses.

SDG15 Protect terrestrial ecology

To protect, restore and promote the sustainable use of terrestrial ecos ystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and r everse land degradation and halt the loss of biodiversity. Land resources have always been one of the resources that human bei ngs and a variety of organisms rely on for survival. Protecting terrest rial ecology is crucial to our long term survival and development. The materials with strong tensile for ce and toughness used in many industries are generally organic mate rials, but it is difficult for microorganisms to degrade such materials and even some materials are very toxic. Therefore, the use of natural spider silk as raw materials to produce relevant products will undoub tedly have a profound impact on sustainable discovery