Image: Flickr/Highways Agency

The transport industry needs to confront the problem of energy use. It takes vast amounts of energy to manufacture new vehicles and too much waste is created when they are scrapped. It's just not sustainable.

Image: Jennie Hills, Science Museum

It's often said that to really get to grips with our environmental problems, people will have to make big changes to their attitudes and behaviour. This takes time and effort. By designing a motorbike which is more environmentally friendly, yet desirable, we hope that people will find it easier to make sustainable choices.

Image: Flickr/ shelly2dogs

Nature is full of incredibly strong structures. Tsunami-proof  ants nests built from saliva and sand are just one amazing example. We are finding ways to harness the strength of plant fibres such as hemp and flax. Flax fibres are extremely long, do not tear easily and can be pulled in many different directions.

Image: Flickr/ skw_

It's really important that we think about the wider social impacts of using bio-composite materials. Growing plants such as flax and hemp on land which could be used for food crops is a really bad idea. So it's great that flax can be grown on wasteland and that it reduces soil toxicity.

Image: Jennie Hills, Science Museum

We stretch and spin the long fibres using a loom. We then clump individual fibres together and organise them into patterns. We use different fibre lengths, clump sizes and patterns for different parts of the motorbike. This means that we can make panels which are stronger or more flexible depending on where they are used.

Image: Flickr/rpcompaneros

We're looking at all sorts of new high-performance materials for the body panels. Silk, used in armour for thousands of years, is stronger and lighter than glass. In the future, there'll only be more cars and bikes on the road, so our focus is on designing more sustainable vehicles which people really want to own.