What matters more than humans ‘getting on the same page’ about what we need to do to live sustainably?
16 October 2024
Kia ora
Last month, I proudly announced Nakedize’s grassroots support for a charitable endeavour called the Same Page Initiative (‘the Initiative’ or ‘SPI’).
In a nutshell, the Initiative addresses the reality that humans are not on the same page about what we need to do to live sustainably on this wondrous planet we all share.
Our uncomfortable and unwelcome ultimatum is this:
— We get on the same page about what to do and team up to quickly activate a global collaboration to change course and unlock a bright future.
— Or we continue on our busy, disjointed path towards extreme inequality, social division, and ecological collapse.
It’s confronting, for sure, but we can’t wish this ultimatum away, and I know millions across the globe roll up their sleeves every day to do what they can.
However, I also know (after more than 20 years of doing my own bit to promote sustainability) that there still aren’t enough of us on the same page about what to do, or even about our plight, its upstream cause, or our simplest options for overcoming it.
To be clear, the primary problem is not disagreement. If global society has been presented with a comprehensible and practical plan for changing course, then its existence has escaped my laser-focussed attention. General publics cannot debate and evolve one or more plans if none exist.
Of course, the reason for this could be because it’s impossible or just too difficult, but if we haven’t earnestly sought a simple plan, how can we know what’s achievable?
The Same Page Initiative directly addresses this almighty blockage.
The Initiative recognises that with all our knowledge and experience, a pathway to our thriving long-term is most likely to be buried in today’s tech-era busyness.
Maybe we just need to slow down and simplify.
Maybe instead of busily convincing ourselves that we’re incapable of solving our sustainability problems causing us to live unsustainably are so complex that they can only be solved by advanced computing.
What I know for certain is that every day we blindly produce more information than we can consume, with most of it being too disorganised and overly-complex to be easily comprehended and remembered, or understood at all.
This is where the need for helpful information comes in.
I have been certain for two decades that our societies need less-and-better information, not ever-more information.
Four years ago, I determined we need an essential set of deeply valuable information (including ‘a simple plan’) that the widest imaginable audience finds engaging, comprehensible, enlightening, memorable, and mobilising.
And four years ago I also determined that creating and sharing this information through a single commercial entity (like Nakedize Limited) won’t work. While the need for less-and-better information is universal and applies to every business, this transformational project is primarily a form of social activism and public service.
A charitable entity is essential for getting started, and a global network of charitable entities will be essential for completing the endeavour.
This is why I recently applied for the Initiative to become a charitable ‘collective’ here in Aotearoa New Zealand operating under the The Gift Trust’s (CC40774) Gift Collective fundholding project.
If approved, the Gift Collective will transparently receive the Initiative’s donations and pay the Initiative’s expenses.
And the Initiative won’t just seek general donations to support the completion of specific tasks (which I have outlined below).
Because this work is all about promoting and creating really helpful information, the Initiative will also supply valuable outputs (like my Theory of Universal Human Needs and new Helpful Information Framework) and seek donations from those who can afford to contribute koha after downloading forthcoming SPI-branded PDFs.
In time (perhaps 12 months), the Initiative can evolve into its own registered charity – the Same Page Foundation – with its own trustees, thus ending the need for a fundholding service. Nakedize’s complementary commercial work can just continue in the background – the kaupapa (purpose) is the same.
Below, you’ll find answers to key questions you may have about the Initiative’s purpose, goals, approach, Same Page 10-year plan, current collaborations, activities, and progress to date. (You don’t need to read everything!)
Finally, I am very glad and grateful for the interest that has led you to this page, and I hope you will seek to become involved or to support the Initiative in whatever way you can. This is bold and challenging work, but I remain confident that if enough of us get on the same page about our shared opportunity to resolve our plight, then we can achieve anything.
Simon Hertnon
Founder and Managing Director
Nakedize Limited
- What is the Initiative’s bold purpose and unique approach?
- What is the Same Page Plan?
- Which organisations are already supporting the Initiative?
- What is the Initiative’s progress to date?
- How can you support the Initiative?
What is the Initiative’s bold purpose and unique approach?
First, here’s the Initiative’s charitable purpose.
Through education, collaboration, broad social engagement, and accessible information, the Same Page Initiative’s purpose is to take the first steps towards the environmental regeneration and social cohesion needed to avoid extreme inequality, social division, and ecological collapse. Global in scope, but local in practice, we’re determined to gift hope to all of us.
And here’s a breakdown of the Initiative’s context, goals, approach, and method.
Context – our shared plight
Experts agree (and we can all observe) that human civilisation has been on a path to ecological collapse since our plundering of nature ballooned following WWII. The term ‘Neo-liberalism’ in the diagram below refers to what I have heard described as ‘capitalism on steroids’, or ‘economic growth at any cost’. It’s all about corporate freedoms that licence economies to take, take, take from people and nature. Or, in other words, it’s the flawed economic game plan that keeps civilisation on the path to planetary insolvency.
The Anthropocene Reality and Planetary Solvency from Planetary Solvency —
finding our balance with nature, a report by the Institute and Faculty
of Actuaries and the University of Exeter (January 16, 2025)
Obviously (one would think), we need to do whatever it takes to change course. But that hasn’t happened because we’re not ‘on the same page’ about what to do or how to do it.
Our reality is that despite millions across the globe working tirelessly to change ‘the system’ or mitigate its effects, the latent desire for change felt by billions of us remains uncoordinated and unactivated.
Context – the cause of our shared plight
According to the 400,000-person global professional services firm, EY, the cause of our plight is the flawed purpose and pursuits of today’s global economic system (aka neoliberalism).
Marked by increasing signs of ecological breakdown, deepening social inequality and rising geopolitical tensions, we find ourselves in the midst of a polycrisis. These causally entangled crises are the result of similarly interconnected structural flaws in the global economic system… Without urgent, large-scale transformation, it’s not a matter of if, but when, we’ll reach the point of ecological collapse.
— A new economy: Exploring the root causes of the polycrisis and the principles to unlock a sustainable future, New Economy Unit, EY (May 2024)
EY’s report goes on to clearly define both the structural flaws and the principles global society must replace them with if we are to change course.
| From: polycrisis economy flaws | To: new economy principles |
|---|---|
| unsustainable growth and overconsumption | sufficiency |
| linear economy | circularity |
| financial capital myopia and short-termism | value redefined |
| siloed thinking | systems thinking |
| inequality and injustice | equality and justice |
We can get our heads around this. It’s not rocket science.
An economic system that seeks ‘cancerous’ growth-on-growth fuelled by the limited resources of people and nature will bring on collapse. One that seeks to serve people and planet will not. ‘Enough of us’ just have to agree to change the purpose of a human-created system.
Yes, it may seem impossible from where we are – surrounded by capitalism, consumerism, and extreme inequality – but it isn’t.
From the perspective of our grandchildren, born or unborn, ours is a simple choice between making a decision and working through a transition, or continuing with our planet-degrading habit at the peril of billions today and every human to come.
Goals – address the cause, then plot a new course
- First, end our accommodation of cancerous business
Facilitate enough of us to team up and change course by replacing the flawed purpose of the global economic system with one consistent with the ‘new economy principles’ above. Instead of people and planet having to serve and fuel the system’s mindless pursuit of economic growth at any cost, we require the system (through social licence and electoral power) to wholly serve the wellbeing of people and planet. - Then plot a new path
Facilitate updating the design of all societal systems (trade, education, healthcare, energy, etc) without the flawed condition of every action having to increase GDP (requiring extraction, labour, consumption, financial wealth generation).
Approach and method – an intervention of simplicity
The approach is to embrace simplicity and prioritise local-global collaboration, which is the opposite of today’s busy, individualistic global culture.
The method is for the Initiative to perform 3 Essential Facilitations:
- Simplify the task by:
- creating a simple, 15-task plan (directly below) centred around 5 Mass Actions
- designing and facilitating 7 Expediting Collaborations so the world’s millions of volunteers and practitioners already working towards ecological and social betterment can concertedly assist the public to perform their five actions
- Provide essential information and promote helpful information (explicitly needed, universally accessible, concise, memorable) so everyone knows what to do.
- Coordinate the collaborations, including providing a purpose-built collaborator platform.
The 10-year Same Page Plan
The 10-year Same Page Plan is performed by three nested groups: Supporters, Expediters, and Essentialists.
Supporters can be any of us, but don’t need to be all of us.
The plan has just 15 tasks, split between the three groups.
- Supporters (enough of us) perform the 5 Mass Actions so we can change course.
- Expediters (volunteers and practitioners working towards ecological and social betterment) perform the 7 Expediting Collaborations to help Supporters perform the Actions confidently and, thus, quickly.
- Essentialists (very careful simplifiers, like me) perform the 3 Essential Facilitations to enable and support the Collaborations and Actions.
Thus, the work of the Initiative is to complete the Facilitations and seed the Collaborations so the Actions can begin and be completed as soon as possible (we’re aiming for 2027 and 2036, respectively).
The five mass actions
| Action | Purpose |
|---|---|
| A1 Team up | First, we equip our movement with the power of numbers. |
| A2 Notify businesses and politicians | Second, using our millions-strong vocal power, we invite businesses and politicians to proactively join us in boycotting and prohibiting harm-causing business. |
| A3 Boycott harm-causing business | Third, using our millions-strong consumer power, we stop supporting businesses that fail to show us their activities are wholly healthy or harmless. |
| A4 Prohibit harm-causing business | Fourth (and simultaneously), using our millions-strong electoral power, we withhold support for politicians who fail to assure us they will prohibit harm-causing business. |
| A5 Redirect societal systems | Fifth (and simultaneously), using our millions-strong wisdom and design capabilities, we amend the goals and rules of our societal systems so they serve and prioritise ecological health and social health. |
The seven expediting collaborations
| Collaboration | Purpose |
|---|---|
| C1 Mobilise Team Humanity | To expedite teaming up (A1) |
| C2 Support societal participation | To expedite notifying businesses and politicians (A2) |
| C3 Reinvigorate social permissions | To expedite boycotting harm-causing business (A3) |
| C4 Simplify legal protections | To expedite prohibiting harm-causing business (A4) |
| C5 Streamline system transformation | To expedite redirecting societal systems (A5) |
| CR Renew humanity’s wisdom | To inform all five mass actions |
| CP Promote helpful information | To support all five mass actions |
The three essential facilitations
| Facilitation | Purpose and method |
|---|---|
| FS Simplify the overall task | To seed popular focus and generate enough belief that changing course is achievable by: supplying a simple action plan; and designing and facilitating |
| FP Provide essential information | To support and stimulate mass participation in the movement by providing essential information to every community in the world. |
| FC Coordinate the Collaborations | To expedite achievement of the Supporter Actions by providing streamlining services to the Expediter Collaborations. |
Which organisations are already supporting the Initiative?
Nakedize has provided full support from day one. Nakedize is my family business (owned by myself, my wife, and my mother) and I proud of the company’s support to help me turn an idea into an initiative that might just evolve into a movement.
Throughout the four-year evolution of the Initiative, I have enjoyed the support of Kāpuhipuhi Wellington Uni-Professional, where I have been teaching writing skills since 2008.
More recently, I have enjoyed the support of impact company Mission: Mārama, the thriving Plain Language Community of Practice (CoP) within the Victorian Government, and the talented teams at Write Group and Made For The World (both B-Corp companies).
Mission: Mārama (led by Juhi Shareef) is building a coordination platform (powered by ethical AI) for mission-driven groups such as sustainability, energy, and innovation networks and project collaborations. The platform is being designed to facilitate the work of the Same Page Plan’s 7 Expediting Collaborations.
Mission: Mārama and Nakedize are also collaborating (as MxN) to design and promote a Universal AI Declaration – an online tool that any entity can complete (yearly) to transparently declare their AI understandings, intentions, commitments, and safeguards (governance and guardrails). We recently socialised a prototype at the Aotearoa AI Summit (organised by the AI Forum and Tech NZ) in Wellington, and were delighted with the engagement.
The Victorian Government Plain Language CoP and Write Group are both providing collegial support to me and Nakedize in the development and promotion of helpful information, which is foundational to the Same Page Plan. Together, we are seeding a Helpful Information Network that I envisage leading the seventh Collaboration: CP Promote Helpful Information.
What is the Initiative’s progress to date?
| Facilitation | Progress to date |
|---|---|
| FS Simplify the overall task | The simplest version of the Same Page Action Plan is complete (you’ve just read it). The next level of detail is partially complete on the Plan page of the Same Page Manifesto. The Same Page Manifesto – needed to engage Expediters for the 7 Expediting Collaborations – contains a full summary on its homepage, with the supporting detail approximately 50% complete. |
| FP Provide essential information | The first cornerstone output – the one-page Helpful Information Framework – is complete. Other relevant outputs, headlined by my one-page Theory of Universal Human Needs, are ready for rebranding as Same Page Initiative outputs. In collaboration with Mission: Mārama, Nakedize is designing and socialising (with New Zealand’s AI Forum and its members) a Universal AI Declaration (UAID), which is essential for achieving responsible AI use. |
| FC Coordinate the Collaborations | Mission: Mārama is building the collaboration tool for the 7 Expediting Collaborations. |
What are the key steps before convening Team Humanity (A1 Team up)?
| Entity progression | Key output |
|---|---|
A charitable ‘collective’ operating under a fundholding charity in Aotearoa New Zealand. |  A full manifesto prepared for engaging Same Page Expediters from across Aotearoa New Zealand and the world. |
 A registered New Zealand charity operating independently with its own trustees. Potentially becoming a master charity coordinating a network of international partners. |  A well resourced local-global movement designed to engage active citizens (Same Page Supporters) as members of ‘Team Humanity’ who team up to perform 5 Mass Actions. |
The key tasks of the Same Page Initiative are to:
- Raise operational and charity-registration funds by promoting the Initiative and a set of Initiative-branded outputs.
- Complete the Same Page Manifesto (the FS Simplify the overall task facilitation) to attract Expediters (volunteers and practitioners working towards ecological and social betterment) to perform the 7 Expediting Collaborations.
- Promote and evolve the Helpful Information Framework and Network (the CP Promote helpful information collaboration) to support the 7 Expediting Collaborations and to raise awareness and donations).
How can you support the Initiative?
Right now you can:
- Learn more about the Initiative by exploring the work-in-progress Same Page Manifesto over at samepagefoundation.org.
- Sign-up for progress notifications at: https://samepagefoundation.org/#notify
- Reach out to me via simon@nakedize.com or through LinkedIn.
And as soon as the Initiative’s ‘collective’ is approved by the fundholding charity, you will be able to start downloading the essential information outputs listed earlier and – if you can afford to – make a donation.
More updates coming soon!