Reference no: EM133527159

Independent research on non-bioengineered plants has found that 10 - 1,000 plants per m2 of floor space (about the space you have around a chair) would be required to remove VOCs from an indoor environment (Cummings & Waring, 2020). If these values were applied to Neoplants' claim that the Neo P1 removes 30 times the VOCs of regular plants, then around 0.3 - 33.3 Neo P1 plants per m2 of floor space would be needed to remove VOCs from an indoor space. For a living room with 25 m2 of floor space, this would mean purchasing 8 - 833 Neo P1 plants at an upfront cost of between AU$2,160 and AU$224,910, although costs would be significantly lower if cuttings from one plant were used to make new plants.

Neoplants' website doesn't mention these figures. Instead, the website claims that the Neo P1 is "The first and only plant built to purify the air in your home." They also use the tagline "Fighting air pollution. One home at a time." and claim that the Neo P1 is "Good for the world, gorgeous for your home. This is a superplant with superpowers."

In media interviews, the company is more cautious. Lionel Mora, one of Neoplant's co-founders, mentioned in an interview with Wired that the Neo P1 "will be the first time in history that such a product exists...The first computers, they weren't so great. But they were revolutionary."

An online exchange between a user of the Y Combinator message board and the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of Neoplants also alludes to the fact that learnings from developing the Neo P1 - alongside associated sales revenue - will be used to support the development of new, more impactful bioengineered plants. Note that the exchange has been edited for length and clarity:

User: "I would love to see some numbers and comparisons. As I said in a reply below, I suspect this is functionally ineffectual and that 30x the air cleaning of a regular plant is like saying 30x the intelligence of a regular plant. I suspect this is functioning as a shiny, attractive prototype to fund further research to develop a 300x or 3000x plant or something in that neighbourhood. No judgment from me for that, prototype funding a bigger plan is a cool business model. I'd just love to get some absolute data."

Reply: "Patrick here, CTO of Neoplants, thanks you so much for spending the time learning about what we've built...Even though our first product, Neo P1, is "only" 30x better than normal indoor plants, it's already a great improvement over anything that's been done in the scientific literature to date (usually improving phytoremediation by 2 or 3x), and this is just the start of the adventure. As you said, we expect to continue to leverage our metabolism and microbiome engineering technologies to have even more performant [sic] plants every year."

Indeed, in other public commentary, such as in their Wired interview, representatives from Neoplants have spoken of using bioengineering to develop new plant variants that address other pressing societal needs, such as enhanced rates of carbon capture and absorbing toxins in contaminated environments. Neoplants also invests $20 from the sale of each Neo P1 to fund further research and development aimed at addressing climate change.

Question: Drawing on the material outlined in the background to this question, describe the ethical tension associated with Neoplants' current claims and future aspirations. As part of your answer, outline a strategy for how you would seek to address this tension.