UBS Global Visionary, Notpla is nominated as an Earthshot Prize finalist!

I am Pierre Paslier, an innovation Design Engineer. I am the co-founder and co-CEO of Notpla, together with Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez.

Notpla is a sustainable packaging company based in London that is pioneering the use of seaweed as an alternative to single-use plastic. The startup is addressing both the environmental and health implications of single-use plastic pollution by using only natural materials like seaweed that can biodegrade in nature in 4 to 6 weeks. Notpla has received multiple awards and grants from Innovate UK and the Ellen Macarthur Foundation for our innovative product, Ooho. Our portfolio of packaging solutions is now much bigger, and we have new exciting solutions, from coating to seaweed paper!

Rodrigo and I developed an early interest in plastic waste and the ways we could find a natural and innovative alternative to plastic. We started our journey as part of a student project for our Master of Innovation Design Engineering, a programme run jointly by the Royal College of Art and Imperial College. In 2013, the first Ooho prototypes were made in Rodrigo’s kitchen. It is an edible and flexible packaging for a wide range of liquids, 100% biodegradable and home compostable. Oohos went viral online, with one Business Insider video gaining 20 million views. The amazing reactions we received on social media and the uniqueness of our product convinced us to found our own company.

Plastic is a very performant material, but it’s indestructible in nature. We simply cannot continue using it for applications where we’re done with the packaging after 5 minutes. Microplastics are now everywhere, and the increasing concentrations are having terrible implications for our health and the health of our oceans.

At Notpla, one of our core values is to “recognize the urgency to act”. In the face of the climate crisis, we need to change the way we live. At the forefront of creating a new future, we always strive to make the first move, designing true solutions that align with our guiding principle that “Nature knows best”.

One of our biggest challenges remains the huge scale-up in industrialisation that is needed to make our innovative products manufacturable in large quantities. It requires years of R&D and many trials to optimize the material formulations, the process parameters and the level of performance needed to compete in this very commoditised space. Luckily, there are champions out there that have the drive to enable change and we’ve been lucky enough to work with experts and industry leaders who’ve welcomed the opportunity to make better packaging.

Notpla packaging is pioneering the use of seaweed as an alternative to single-use plastic. Our packaging is unique, what we’ve done have never been done before!

Single-use plastic is one of the leading causes of environmental pollution across the globe. The UN Environment Programme estimates that only 9% of all plastic waste ever produced has been recycled, while 12% has been incinerated and the remaining 79% has accumulated in landfills, dumps, or the natural environment. At Notpla, we create packaging solutions that are proof tested by nature.

Seaweed is one of the planet’s most abundant sources of biomass (growing at a rate up to 1 metre per day), its production does not compete with food crops, requires no fertiliser or fresh water to produce and actively sequesters carbon dioxide. In line with the new EU Single-Use Plastic Directive which aims to ban synthetic materials such as PLA, PHA and other bioplastics, Notpla’s products easily biodegrade in nature in just 4-6 weeks without the need for industrial composting or special conditions. The EU’s ambitious targets cannot be achieved without innovative solutions like Notpla.

We are on a mission to make packaging disappear. Our ambition is to keep accelerate. We just announced the launch of our Notpla Paper and our Pipette for oil. We are also working hard on the industrialization of our flexible film. Finally, we have another exciting project in the pipeline, tackling another category of packaging. More on this later in the year.

Our ambition is to accelerate the pace towards a zero single-use plastic future, and put seaweed on the map of packaging solutions. At Notpla we believe that “Nature knows best”, and we only use naturally occurring materials that have had millions of years to adapt with the rest of the environment. Our new films and seaweed paper are great examples of this principle and are the most sustainable solution in their categories. We’re excited to see so much traction coming from the food service, cosmetic and fashion industries.

We need everyone to play their part. Consumers show they want alternatives, governments are starting to legislate, investors are making bets on innovative technologies. Philanthropists must continue to support the charge against plastic waste by supporting initiatives that are the least financially rewarded by our system even though they contribute the most to our society. Fundamental research, conservation, education and activism are key areas that tend to receive the least attention from for profit funding sources.

It was unreal to get the email confirming that we were a finalist of the Earthshot Prize. Having followed the announcement around the Prize last year, I couldn’t believe Notpla was given this huge opportunity. Regardless of the final result, this is an amazing accolade from such a prestigious Prize, and we will make sure to use this platform to raise awareness around the issues of single use plastics, and the hope that seaweed can bring on this issue.

Winning the £1m prize would give our R&D team an incredible boost. Notpla is made of chemists, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs pushing the boundaries of what is possible to do with natural materials. The prize would allow us to grow our team and install new equipment in our lab in order to iterate faster and save years in the scale up of our products to help more marathons, stadiums and brands go plastic free!