London-based sustainable packaging company Notpla say winning Prince William's Earthshot Prize helped them grow their business and communicate their mission to eradicate single use plastic by using seaweed and plants instead.
Notpla won in 2022, two years after the heir to the British throne launched the decade long project which aims to ‘’repair and restore the planet.” Every year companies from the around the world who offer environmental solutions compete for five 1 million pound prizes.
Speaking to Reuters ahead of the next Earthshot Prize ceremony on November 5 in Rio de Janeiro, Notpla co-founder and co-CEO Rodrigo Garcia said winning helped boost sales of their nature based products including food packaging boxes lined with coating made from seaweed instead of plastic.
'I think it helped us....to communicate what we are doing, and that has brought quite a lot of interest, partners, clients, suppliers who didn't know about Notpla before....(and) Prince William….help us to implement our boxes, for example at many stadiums in the UK,’’ Garcia said.
Founded by Garcia and Pierre Paslier in 2014, Notpla - an abbreviation of "not plastic'' started with Ooho, an edible seaweed based product that encapsulates liquid, used for things such as sauce sachets and energy gels.
Garcia said Notpla, whose clients include food delivery service JustEat and furniture retailer IKEA has so far “replaced 30 million units of plastic’’ however their aim is to get that figure to 1 billion by 2030.
'Seaweed is quite abundant..... You have to be careful in the same way that when you need to be careful with agriculture or with forestry .... But we do believe that if (done) correctly it is one of the most abundant biomass on the planet,'' he explained.
Adding praise for Prince William and the ongoing support William and the Earthshot community have brought.
'We are so proud to have Prince William as an advocate of our mission….(he) appeals to ….such a broad audience and (can therefore) ..communicate the message across different levels of the society and different spectrums.’’ Garcia said.