7 Commandments to Save the Planet

7 Commandments to Save the Planet

By Ron and Kelly Najafi

Copyright 2024, Ron and Kelly Najafi

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN (Paperback): 979-8-9913681-0-0

ISBN (eBook): 979-8-9913681-1-7

Dedication

Kelly and I dedicate this book to our children, our grandchildren, and all future generations. May we strive to leave behind a planet that is safe and prosperous, a world worth living in. We hope that the Seven Commandments we propose will guide the way forward, creating a sustainable future without causing hardship for anyone. This is our legacy, a pledge to nurture and protect our beautiful Earth for those who come after us.

Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth…these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.

—Ban Ki-moon, eighth secretary-general of the United Nations

Introduction

Planet Earth is in crisis.

The waste produced by modern civilization is damaging the ecosystems we rely on for clean air, water, and food. Human activity—clearing forests, overfishing, and polluting the air and water—is causing environmental disasters and destroying natural resources. These ills will get worse unless we change how we live.

This book is about what we must do to create a sustainable world. It describes an imaginary place called UTOPA that adopts a comprehensive set of policies to address the environmental threats we face. These policies, called The Seven Commandments to Save the Planet, change how we live and work to create a sustainable future and ensure the welfare of future generations.

In this introduction, we start in the future. We take you to UTOPA in 2040 and describe the changes that have taken place to create a circular economy that preserves the environment and drives economic growth and prosperity.

Welcome to UTOPA in 2040

Welcome to UTOPA in 2040, an imaginary place on the West Coast of the United States. UTOPA transformed the environment by adopting the Seven Commandments to Save the Planet. These commandments didn’t come down from celestial heights but were created on Earth to address the environmental degradation caused by modern industrial waste.

To save the planet, the one-and-done philosophy that ruled the old linear economy had to be replaced by principles of sustainability and reuse. With discarded plastics, paper, and other materials contaminating our lands and seas, we had to break from business as usual and try a new approach. The change could not be a quick fix but a new way of thinking about and relating to the environment as the fragile and limited resource it is.

New World, New Values

In 2040, UTOPA has a circular economy in which resources are used efficiently and waste is minimized. As much as possible, materials are reused or repurposed rather than discarded, creating a closed-loop system in which the end of one product’s life cycle is the beginning of another’s.

Unlike in the take-make-waste economy, in the circular economy manufacturers design products to be durable, reusable, and repairable. They also manage the entire life cycle of their products, from production to the disposal of waste materials. For their part, consumers repair, refurbish, or donate items rather than throw them away, and practice composting and recycling.

In UTOPA, we’ve redefined the concept of ownership, with sharing and subscription services becoming the norm for items that once upon a time were single-owner. For example, instead of buying a car, individuals access a shared fleet of self-driving cars.

The Seven Commandments have produced significant changes that improved the environment and created a new economy. This transformation involved substantial public and private investment that immediately began generating returns. Even those who were initially skeptical quickly became convinced of the benefits not only for the environment but for the economy as well. The circular economy created new opportunities for companies that recycle, remanufacture, repair, and reprocess the materials used to make clothing and household goods and produced markets for businesses to provide Product-as-a-Service (PaaS).

In 2040, people born in the previous 20 years can’t even imagine what the old linear economy was like. That world voraciously consumed resources and discarded waste, leaving behind by-products that polluted our rivers and oceans and fouled the air. The younger generation has never known that world and hopefully never will.

Let’s go on a trip to see how UTOPA has transformed itself.

Three Labels for Everything: Education and Awareness Drive Behavior

The government of UTOPA realizes that for sustainability to become a part of everyday life, they have to educate the public about the environmental consequences of discarding waste rather than recycling it. For example, consumers must be made aware of how long trashed materials remain in the environment before breaking down and disappearing. These three labels educate the consumer and encourage manufacturers to reduce waste and carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution.

To do this, UTOPA has enacted strict labeling requirements. Many products we buy are already labeled to maintain our own personal health and well-being: Hair dryer labels tell us to keep away from water to avoid death by electrocution, cigarette labels remind smokers of the risk of birth defects and lung cancer, alcohol labels warn that drinking impairs driving, and plastic bag labels say to keep away from children due to the danger of suffocation. Similarly, UTOPA’s labels maintain the health and well-being of the Earth. Consumers see three labels on every product:

Label 1: CO2 emitted during product manufacture

This label indicates how much CO2 was emitted in producing a product, again with one tree equivalent to 20 lb. of CO2. For example, to produce a refrigerator, one must estimate how much energy was used to make its parts, such as the door, the compressor, etc. If production uses renewable resources such as wind or solar, this label shows minimal CO2, as represented by the number of trees. However, if nonrenewable resources are used, this label indicates more trees.

Label 2: CO2 emitted during use

Devices and substances that emit CO2 are marked with one tree symbol for every 20 lb. of CO2 released into the atmosphere. A typical tree, through photosynthesis, can remove about 20 lb. of CO2 from the atmosphere per year. Thus, a full gas tank is labeled with one tree because it emits about 20 lb. of CO2 on average. The use of a typical personal computer for a few hours is marked as 0.25 tree. Turning on the air-conditioning for five days equals three trees.

Label 3: Time to decompose and associated hazard level

Every substance released into the environment has an environmental fate, that is, something that will happen to it over time. In UTOPA, manufacturers use peer-reviewed, literature-based environmental fate studies to establish the time it takes for a product to decompose in the environment. For example, a label might say, Compostable, degrades within 300 days (give example); Remains in the environment for 400 years (give example); or Remains in the environment for 2,000 years with associated hazard (give example). The hazard level would be rated on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most toxic.

The use of these three labels serves to educate the consumer directly and persistently and encourages manufacturers to reduce waste and carbon pollution.

K–12 Education and Beyond

In the UTOPA of 2040, environmental education is a top priority and is required in all schools from kindergarten through 12th grade. Environmental sustainability is taught in kindergarten by showing children how bees and food production are related, and how the environment can impact soil, plants, and animals. Children are taught about the environmental sciences and participate in field trips to nature reserves, recycling centers, and landfills. They learn about the differences between recyclable and disposable materials. In UTOPA 2040, large grants are provided for environmental education and to support the creation of ecologically sustainable businesses.

Public service announcements about environmental sustainability run regularly on the Internet, television, and radio. For example, people see and hear advertisements encouraging them to recycle plastic bottles rather than throw them away or to leave their discarded chemicals and paints by the curbside, where they are picked up and disposed of safely. The public is taught that packaging is returnable and valuable.

Sustainability Grants

On an annual basis, UTOPA awards dozens of grants, each worth $5–10 million, to encourage innovation in the environmental sciences and to inspire groundbreaking sustainability ideas. In addition, a select committee awards more than two hundred annual grants worth $250,000 each for ideas to reduce pollution and create a more optimal circular economy. These grants are similar to the Small Business Innovation Research grants administered by the National Institutes of Health. They can be renewed for up to $750,000 or terminated depending on the progress made by the grant recipients. The grants are given to those with ideas that can be commercialized such as:

New battery technology

New solar cell technology

New ways to educate K–12 using games or virtual field trips

New self-driving cars

Single-point carbon capture technology

Fusion research

Water purification technology

Environmental cleanup

Sustainable agriculture

Everything Is Rented or Leased

While raising environmental awareness has been invaluable, the key to saving the environment has been a fundamental change in how goods and services are produced and sold. This change has enabled the reinvention of the economy on a mass scale, making a change so significant that it has created whole new industries and ways of doing business.

By converting from an ownership paradigm to a rental paradigm, UTOPA has transitioned from a linear economy that produced vast amounts of waste to a circular economy in which there is almost no such thing as waste. In the circular economy, by-products are reused, recycled, or repurposed, and almost nothing is discarded. This process applies to electronics like computers and cell phones, as well as agricultural products, manufactured goods, vehicles, and building materials.

Here is how it works.

In the circular economy, product manufacturers own their products forever. This means that the makers of most durable products have permanent responsibility for that product and the materials from which it is made. Thus many products are never bought in the traditional sense but are rented or leased from their makers. When the user of a product like an automobile or refrigerator doesn’t want the item anymore or wants to replace it with a newer one, rather than discard it or sell it used, they return it to the seller. The manufacturer is then responsible for reselling it or recycling it in some way.

The environmental benefits of this new economic model have been profound. First, large-scale dumps and landfills are no longer needed as final resting places for large discarded items like cars, kitchen appliances, sofas, tires, vacuum cleaners, and other durable things that are no longer used. This frees up land resources for better and more productive purposes. For example, what was once a smelly eyesore filled with the disintegrating detritus of industrial life can now serve a nobler purpose, such as green space or a livable community.

Secondly, manufacturing processes and business models have evolved to support the circular economy. Manufacturers focus on designing sustainable, durable, and easy-to-repair or easy-to-recycle products, reducing waste and pollution. They have also transitioned to a Product-as-a-Service (PaaS) business model in which they sell the use of many of their products instead of selling the products themselves. This way, manufacturers have more control over the products they produce and the materials they use, allowing them to keep resources in use for extended periods.

The PaaS model benefits manufacturers by providing a steady income from the rental of their products, stabilizing their quarterly earnings. It also helps consumers by making it easier to afford big-ticket items. For example, a young, cash-strapped couple can rent a refrigerator for $35 per month rather than pay $3,000 upfront. Assuming a 10-year life span for the refrigerator, the manufacturer earns $4,200 over those 10 years.

Additionally, if the consumer keeps the unit for another five years, the monthly rental fee drops to $10 per month. This incentivizes the consumer to hold on to the product and encourages the manufacturer to make a durable and repairable product.

At the end of the refrigerator’s life, the manufacturer takes the appliance back and reuses its various parts. The doors, handles, compressors, and so forth are turned into raw material or refashioned into another product. The PaaS business model also creates a secondary rental market that enables the cash-strapped couple to rent a used refrigerator for a smaller monthly fee than a new one. This secondary market gives the manufacturer an incentive to keep the refrigerator repaired and continuously working.

Closed-loop manufacturing, a process in which waste materials from one stage of the production process are used as inputs for another stage, eliminates waste and reduces the need for new raw materials, conserving natural resources and reducing pollution. Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain, an advanced database mechanism that stores data in blocks linked together in a chain, optimize manufacturing processes and reduce waste. For example, predictive maintenance can help manufacturers identify and address issues before they become significant problems, while blockchain can track materials and ensure they are sourced sustainably.

The linear economic model of take-make-waste has been ended and replaced with different revenue incentives for manufacturers. Products remain in circulation far longer and manufacturers earn higher revenue from keeping the same product running longer. Products are not manufactured for planned obsolescence but rather are manufactured for long life, ease of use, ease of repair, and ease of recycling.

Subscription Transportation Services

Consumers can subscribe to transportation services rather than rent or purchase vehicles. This subscription model dominates the transportation segment of the economy because it is cheaper to subscribe to a car service than to rent or buy a car. The cars provided by this service model are fully autonomous and can be called to a house or apartment within minutes at any time of the day or night.

Because autonomous vehicles can work twenty hours a day and recharge for only four, they can be used almost continuously. This makes it profitable for car owners to participate in the rental economy by renting their cars to the public, like rooms and apartments on Airbnb.

Reuse and Recycle Packaging

Just as big-ticket items like cars, kitchen appliances, and furniture remain the responsibility of manufacturers throughout their life spans, so does the packaging in which consumer products are delivered. Businesses that use non-compostable materials such as aluminum, plastic, glass, Styrofoam, and paper for packaging products must recycle or reuse those materials rather than create more waste.

Manufacturers have learned to use materials that can be easily reclaimed or reused, and avoid those that are difficult to recycle, such as mixed materials or plastics that are not recyclable. Local recycling companies have partnered with manufacturers to ensure their packaging is recycled correctly. They have also developed new recycling technologies and processes.

By implementing a closed-loop system, manufacturers take back their packaging materials and recycle them into new packaging products or simply reuse them as-is. This system ensures that the materials are not sent to landfills. They also reduce the amount of packaging materials by redesigning their products or packaging and using alternative packaging materials, such as biodegradable or compostable materials, which are sustainable.

The government of UTOPA and companies have educated consumers about the importance of recycling and provided them with clear instructions on recycling packaging. This type of education has extended the transformative impact of the circular economy at UTOPA beyond the business world into consumers’ daily lives, further reducing the production of waste materials.

Recycling Incentives

In the United States, one-way beverage containers like glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans now operate on a security deposit refund system. The deposit is proportional to the purchase price of a typical hamburger based on the local cost of living. In UTOPA, for example, the deposit required for five plastic bottles is roughly $5. Where the approximate cost of a hamburger is more or less than $5, the deposit varies accordingly.

This security deposit adds enough to the cost of items like beer and soda to provide a solid incentive to return rather than discard empty containers. To accommodate the increase in the recycling of bottles and cans, recycling centers have sprung up around supermarkets and shopping malls to make it easy for consumers to return empty containers.

A side benefit to increasing the deposit for disposable containers has been the creation of a lucrative business opportunity for people to retrieve discarded bottles and cans. Whereas bottle deposits used to be as low as 5 cents in some states, UTOPA’s more substantial refund for returning these items makes it possible to earn significant money scavenging for them. This system has helped people on the margins of society earn livelihoods while at the same time helping keep the environment free of litter.

Home Recycling

In UTOPA, you have the option of leaving your recycling material at the curbside. Depending on the weight of your recycled material, your waste management company will pay you instead of you paying them.

Hazardous Waste Disposal

Because households produce dangerous waste in the form of paint, batteries, cleaning fluids, pesticides, and other toxic chemicals, UTOPA has made it easier to safely dispose of these substances by implementing a curbside pickup program. This program ensures that hazardous waste doesn’t end up down the drain or in backyard sheds and instead is disposed of through clean incineration and other safe methods. Technologies to improve hazardous waste handling were developed as a direct result of a sustainability grant, mentioned previously.

Environmental Fate Studies

Although UTOPA has a robust hazardous collection system, every manufacturer of paint, batteries, and plastic bottles must conduct a literature-based environmental fate study to show what happens if they try to compost their packaging or their battery. For example, a proper environmental fate study for batteries might show that nickel and cadmium will leach out of the battery and go into the soil to be a source of toxicity for all living things. Companies then have to adopt a labeling system to show how long their product lasts in the environment and its level of toxicity.

Taxation

Another key to reducing pollution has been using tax policies to discourage the production of CO2 emissions and create incentives for businesses and individuals to use alternative energy sources or reduce energy consumption. Such approaches put a price on carbon emissions by taxing fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas.

Carbon taxation is the most efficient,