Natural alternative to plastic packaging among green innovations rewarded by Prince of Wales
A British company that creates packaging from seaweed has won a £1m prize from the Prince of Wales’s Earthshot fund.
London startup Notpla – short for Not Plastic – was one of five companies awarded $1.2m (£1m) for scaling up innovative ideas that benefit the environment.
Notpla’s seaweed-based products include an edible drinks capsule trialled at the 2019 London marathon and takeaway food boxes – over a million of which have been produced this year for delivery platform JustEat.
The Hackney-based company was co-founded by Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez and Pierre Paslier, who met while studying innovation design engineering at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art.
“When Rodrigo and I started Notpla eight years ago in our student kitchen, we would have never imagined we would be here today,” said Paslier.
“No-one wants to live in a world full of plastic waste but it’s not too late to act. There’s never been a greater time to use natural solutions to solve the plastic challenge.”
Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot challenge in the 1960s and launched by the Prince of Wales in 2020, the Earthshot Prize aims to discover and help scale innovative solutions that put the world firmly on a trajectory toward a stable climate by 2030.
Every year this decade, five Earthshot winners will be chosen for their groundbreaking solutions to five of the greatest environmental challenges facing our planet.
Notpla’s award came in a category entitled Build a Waste-Free World, whilst the other categories – Clean our Air, Protect and Restore Nature, Revive our Oceans and Fix our Climate – saw winners from Kenya, India, Australia and Oman respectively.
All prize winners were determined by the Earthshot Council – a panel of judges that included HRH Prince William, broadcaster and environmentalist Sir David Attenbrough, World Trade Organisation director-general Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, actor Cate Blanchett and pop star Shakira Mebarak.
Speaking at the ceremony, The Prince of Wales said: “I believe that the Earthshot solutions you have seen this evening prove we can overcome our planet’s greatest challenges. And by supporting and scaling them we can change our future.
“Alongside tonight’s winners and finalists, and those to be discovered over the years to come, it’s my hope the Earthshot legacy will continue to grow, helping our communities and our planet to thrive.”
Image courtesy of the Earthshot Prize.
