Every day - 300,000 lives on this earth start with a loud YES!

But in the course of growing up, many people develop an inner NO - a NO to their own life and even more to the observed contradictions in the world. All these people have the desire for a YES!

But they are missing the way to get there, they see no bridges leading them to a better relation with the world they are living in. And these people have the feeling that they have no influence, no self-efficacy. They mostly feel miserable. This inner NO is therefore displaced by distraction, consumption and appeasement.

At the same time we have all the necessary knowledge and technologies to reach the great goals of humanity and to PROTECT OUR PLANET.

No one needs to starve or to be poor, we know how to prevent climate change, loss of biodiversity and the death of the oceans. However, millions of children continue to die of hunger each year, and the data on ecological disasters are deteriorating faster and faster, despite promises and conferences.

It's about TIME...

Time to do something different. Time to shape the world as it could be. A world of UNLIMITED RESOURCES on a limited planet. planetYES is the story about it. And more than just a story, it's the way to do it.

What do we NEED?

It starts with the basic needs of human beings: food, energy and a place to live. Health and education. The need for good relationships and the natural joy of one's own creativity and curiosity. We don´t need to invent something from the scratch. For the whole system to work differently we can reassemble existing insights, technologies and solutions.

THEN THE WHOLE SYSTEM ACTUALLY WORKS.

There are two prerequisites for a new system to actually work and to develop significant GLOBAL IMPACT: such a system should provide a more attractive framework to broad parts of the population than the life they currently have. It must be economically viable and yield more material and immaterial values than it consumes resources.

There is no need for much more - we just have to THINK THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

All resources we need for living are provided by nature: water, air, light, food. But there is a genuine human resource. The resource that distinguishes human kind from all other living beings. And which has changed this world more quickly than anything else before: the HUMAN MIND. The mind, with its ability to plan, which is always curious and - together with our language - is the foundation of our culture, of technology and of all innovations.

There are two major differences between natural and physical resources on the one hand and immaterial resources on the other: material resources require additional resources to be transported from one place to another. KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION CAN BE SENT AND SHARED ACROSS THE GLOBE IN REAL TIME, VIRTUALLY WITHOUT RESOURCE CONSUMPTION.

Material resources - food, water, air - become less by sharing.
SHARED KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION BECOME MORE AND MORE.

What does it mean to THINK DIFFERENTLY?

Imagine that cities, regions, communities cover a higher proportion of the basic needs of people living there: nutrition, energy and housing, health and education. And that this is not done through mutual competition but in a cooperative way. Where people don’t work for themselves but for each other (there are many existing examples where this is done). It´s about regional and circular economy on a cooperative basis.

Add another important piece: systematic innovation and applied research.
At this moment, a system in which several pieces, similar to organs, work together, becomes a thinking system, a thinking organism.

Now imagine that there is not just one such city or region, but many and many of them worldwide. And that all of them are connected and thus exchanging their knowledge and innovation.

Now, many thinking systems build a thinking network. A network of DECENTRALIZED GREEN INNOVATION GENERATORS! Innovation generators that not only share and multiply this knowledge, but which can also use it economically.

What are the PRINCIPLES of our developments?

Resource conservation, resilience, sustainability and regeneration of regional communities: cities, regions, communities. Cooperation and mutual connection.

What are the EFFECTS?

FOR REGIONS AND PEOPLE.

THROUGH SUSTAINABLE, REGIONAL FOOD PRODUCTION:

Regeneration of soil and building of humus. Promotion of biodiversity. Nutrition with healthy foods to which people have an inner relation again.

THROUGH REGIONAL, RENEWABLE ENERGY GENERATION:

Massively reduced greenhouse gas production, resilience to major system disruptions and increased independence as well as awareness of energy production and consumption.

THROUGH SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION:

Conservation of resources, reduction of emissions associated with the construction of infrastructure. And above all: humane living conditions and the promotion of community.

All this contributes - together with a strengthening of the regional economy to an
INCREASE IN REGIONAL ADDED VALUE.

ADHERENCE TO THESE PRINCIPLES HAS SEVERAL IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES:

  1. Analogous to the humus structure of the soil - economic values can be built up and increased.
  2. Greater regional added value is associated with increased efficiency of people's performance. Along with technological advances (e.g. digitization) this allows for a completely new definition of life-time models: less classical work is needed to make a good living for oneself and one's own family. Time is free to devote to other activities and actively participate in socially important areas.

This is how education can become a community-based task. Everyone can contribute to the education of others - especially children and young people. This makes education from a system of schooling to a system of applied learning of healthy living, curiosity and competencies. Networking with other communities in the big planetYES NETWORK allows for educational exchange programs and opening up to other cultures and places.

Health can also become a community-based task. Regional communities can set common health goals - e.g. promoting a healthy lifestyle and reducing health risk factors. Together with a community-led and managed health care system (there are state-of-the-art examples!), this will enable the best possible health in rural and urban environments and for people of all social layers.

All these effects can be massively promoted through COOPERATIVE SYSTEMS
of administration and cooperation WITHIN AND BETWEEN OUR FOCUS AREAS.

On the formal level, these cooperative systems can be modern forms of cross-sectoral cooperative models - so everyone benefits from collective success and their own contribution to it. This can be complemented by professional models for collaborative decision-making of self-organized systems - efficient, protecting minorities and the weaker/socially inclusive, yet at the same time oriented towards the common well-being, stability and economic success of the community.

Modern forms of regional monetary systems can help not only to yield economic benefits for regional communities but, together with the other areas, promote social and cultural change in favor of a collaborative community-oriented attitude.

Generating significant GLOBAL IMPACT.

The first mission of planetYES is to decouple the exponential relation between the development status of a country (as e.g. measured by the human development index) and its ecological footprint. Provided that 1 BILLION HUMANS are part of planetYES, who emitted 10 tons of greenhouse gas per person per year and that the planetYES socio-bio-economic model would mean a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 80% this would mean a reduction of 8 billion tons of greenhouse gas per year. This is about 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Such an assumption is done without consideration of secondary effects of planetYES success, e.g. effects on total international transport, global trends in energy production, transformation of industries and agriculture towards emission reduction, which can be induced by planetYES as a role model and driver of the green (r)evolution.

Many other GLOBAL EFFECTS WILL ARISE from the EXPONENTIAL GROWTH STRATEGY of planetYES: economic, societal and most importantly: inner human effects.

You may think of it as utopia. planetYES paves the way to an REALISTIC UTOPIA. Not by a single design for all people and communities. But in the way of common principles which are realized in a context-sensitive and integrative though strategic way. Taking into account differences in culture, political and legal systems, but also differences in climate, ecology and living conditions. But the basic needs and desires of people all around the world are quite similar.

planetYES connects top experts from the scientific community with practitioners, decision-makers in large companies, with media, arts, politics and – last but not least – spirituality (though not with an ideological attitude but spirituality as an important part of the whole history of human kind in all regions of the world). And most of all, planetYES connects people and invites them to contribute with their PERSONAL INNER YES to a shared vision of the good life for all – buen vivir – in accordance and resonance with our planetEARTH.