After Earthshot: What's next for sustainability stars Notpla after winning top award - and how is the RSC helping?
Notpla co-founders Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez and Pierre Paslier with the Earthshot Prize Picture: Notpla
The coronation came on 2 December 2022, courtesy of a royal decree of sorts. Crowned as the sovereigns of sustainability as the winners of one of Prince William鈥檚 Earthshot Prizes, world changed immediately as they garnered global acclaim for their team's environmental efforts.
, BBC cameras were in place to capture the team鈥檚 delirious dancing on the balcony of a London hotel. The celebrations came with the satisfaction and sense of vindication and validation that comes with external assurance, especially when it arrives on behalf of a future king.
The , which came in the 鈥楤uild a waste-free world鈥� category, capped off a meteoric five-year rise for Notpla. Using seaweed and plants, Notpla has unlocked the capabilities to replace plastic in many single-use applications, while still allowing consumers the convenience of plastic that we have all become used to.
Now operating at an industrial scale, these solutions can effectively 'drop in' and be manufactured on the same machinery and in the same facilities as traditional plastics. Notpla's products range from water-encapsulating bubbles that are entirely edible, through to seaweed-lined takeaway food boxes, films and even paper.
They have partnered with major brands including , and , working with the latter to hand out Ooho edible bubbles at the . Their products even appeared at the recent in Istanbul. Now, research director Louise Anderson believes the business is well placed to make another huge leap forward.
鈥淭hat next day [after winning the award], I think everybody was just euphoric,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e're all just really amazed and then when we got the validation, it was like, 鈥榳ow, this is the biggest tick in our box ever鈥�. Our website views just exploded.
鈥淓verybody in the business was just delighted at the reach that we got from that award ceremony, it was pretty huge. The buzz just continued because it then gave us the opportunity to really consider the plans of scaling, which is where we are now, and allowed us to open doors that hadn't previously been open so commercially it's enabled us to take off quite a bit.鈥�
Members of the Notpla team celebrate winning the Earthshot Prize Picture: Notpla
Louise Anderson, Research Director at Notpla Picture: Notpla
A princely reward
The award is both 鈥榯he Nobel Prize for the environment鈥� and a 鈥楻oyal seal of approval鈥�, adds chartered chemist Louise. The latter comment is both slightly tongue-in-cheek and arguably true. As well as receiving 拢1 million in prize money, Notpla has benefitted from assistance from the Prince of Wales himself 鈥� which has come at an opportune time.
鈥淲e were having a discussion about how, had the Earthshot Prize happened years before, we wouldn't have been set up to deal with the inbound inquiries,鈥� Louise adds. 鈥淲hen the award hit, it was almost like 鈥榦kay, now we go鈥�. In essence, it has given us the opportunity to go after the big customers that we were trying to engage with, particularly in the food service industry.
鈥淧rince William has been particularly engaged in dropping our name in different scenarios. He essentially asked: 鈥榠f there was like one name you wanted me to talk to or one introduction you wanted me to make, who is it?鈥� And he's been doing that for us. So since then, we've expanded our commercial ambitions.鈥�
Laying the foundations for growth
Notpla has enjoyed a rapid rise with its sustainable products generating attention even before December鈥檚 victory. In 2017, co-founders Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez produced Ooho, 鈥� and generated 拢850,000 of crowdfunding investment in three days. Collaborations with Imperial College chemical scientists, major commercial deals, and rounds of VC and seed funding have followed since, catalysing further growth.
The 九州影院 has also played a part in helping Notpla along its journey. The company was part of EnterprisePlus, which has now evolved into , and has received other RSC funding.
鈥淭hey've always been there as a support arm for Notpla, and I myself, as a chemist, have always known the RSC to be there in case I needed anything,鈥� Louise says. 鈥淲e actually had funding from the RSC for one of our first chemists to join the team as an intern in 2019.
鈥淲e always used to get emails 鈥� 鈥榯here's this grant鈥� or 鈥榯here's this session happening鈥�. It was just having that presence there and having somebody, especially from the chemistry perspective, bringing things to our attention.鈥�
Notpla's full product line Picture: Sam Scales
Exploring opportunities and building relationships
Notpla is working towards securing Series B funding as the company continues along the business lifecycle. Contact with our Enterprise Impact Programmes team remains useful, and while their needs have changed, the collaborative relationship the two sides share is still as important as ever to the Notpla team.
鈥淚 think as long as we have an R&D team, we'll have a need for a relationship with the RSC. I think it would be great to see what opportunities there are out there for getting our team more involved in outreach,鈥� Louise explains.
鈥淲e are thinking about the chemists that are in our team, how we train them and make them the best they can be. One of the things the RSC is really strong with, I think, is training opportunities.
"We're still facing a lot of the challenges technically, as we were in the beginning, in terms of trying to move things along the technology readiness scale. Anything that they can offer 鈥� in terms of training or support or people to talk to 鈥� can help us through those challenges.鈥�
Change Makers, which was launched in February, offers deep tech start-ups and scale-ups support in a wide variety of forms. For a business like Notpla that relies so much on chemistry to achieve its sustainability goals, the scheme 鈥榞oes a step beyond what EnterprisePlus was鈥�.
鈥淚 think there's definitely a need for something out there that supports technical businesses,鈥� Louise adds. 鈥淚t's interesting the approach that the RSC is taking in terms of networking and having a peer-to-peer support because a lot of the challenges you face in a technical role or as a technical team within a startup are very different to like a commercial team or any other type of startup so it's good that there's this pool of other people we can talk to.鈥�
Planning for the future
Around 15% of 狈辞迟辫濒补鈥檚 70 staff are chemists and chemical scientists, adding that the company would probably not have been able to achieve what it has without knowledge from this field. For her, one of the big short-term goals is getting more of her staff professionally accredited.
鈥淚t's good for the person's career and also for us to be able to demonstrate that actually we've got people in our team who tick all the boxes for an external validation for how good a scientist they are,鈥� she noted.
After surviving and thriving in the early stages of life as a deep tech SME and now more than half a year on from winning the Earthshot, Notpla is ready for more. Ambitious plans for the next 12 months include getting more products into the market, increasing R&D capabilities, improving facilities, and advancing and scaling up new commercial technologies.
鈥淚f everything goes well, hopefully we'll reach profitability in terms of our products, be able to demonstrate recurring revenue and that for us will mean more and more Notpla products out there in the market replacing plastic with our technology,鈥� Louise added of the short-term company鈥檚 objectives.
鈥淥ne of the big things for us is being able to say we've replaced this much plastic at the end of the year, to really be able to go out into the world and be able to see our solutions being used in place of others, I think that's when we know we'll have been successful and hopefully that will happen within the next year, especially with a lot of the packaging distributors we've got on board.鈥�
A Notpla team member works on Notpla Rigid Picture: Notpla
A Notpla team member works on Notpla Rigid Picture: Notpla
Learn more:
- Read more about Notpla by visiting
- Find out how Change Makers is boosting deep tech chemistry SMEs at
- Learn about the RSC鈥檚 professional qualifications at /careers/cpd/practising-scientists/