Notpla, one of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub Members, has won The Earthshot Prize in its nominated category of innovative solutions to ‘Build A Waste-Free World’. The Earthshot Prize, led by HRH The Prince of Wales, was first awarded in 2021 and is designed to accelerate, award and scale the best and most ingenious solutions to repair and regenerate our planet, while simultaneously nurturing eco-innovators and their impact. Notpla was one of five winners announced at an awards ceremony in Boston on Friday 2 December, each receiving £1 million prize money and access to a global support network to scale their solutions.
Notpla is the first UK winner of The Earthshot Prize, for its alternative biodegradable solution to plastic made from seaweed and plants. The company was co-founded by Pierre-Yves Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez. Pierre completed the Enterprise Hub’s SME Leaders programme (now named the Shott Scale Up Accelerator) in 2020 and Rodrigo began the same programme in 2022.
The Shott Scale Up Accelerator is a BEIS-funded six-month programme that develops, nurtures and strengthens the leadership capabilities of senior decision makers in high-growth engineering and tech SMEs to scale their business to the next level. Since it began in 2016, the Shott Scale Up Accelerator has enabled over 120 leaders of high growth SMEs with:
- Equity-free grants
- Mentoring from an Academy Fellow
- Training, coaching and networking opportunities with the Academy’s network of experts
- Access to the Academy’s office and meeting spaces in London and Belfast
- Lifetime membership of the Enterprise Hub to share co-working spaces, connections and mentoring opportunities
Dr John Lazar CBE FREng, Chair of the Enterprise Committee at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said:
“Notpla’s achievement is truly remarkable as a symbol of UK innovation with a global impact, co-founded by entrepreneurs with a creative engineering solution to help to build a more waste-free world.
We are incredibly proud that the UK’s first winner of The Earthshot Prize is one of the Academy’s Enterprise Hub Members. Notpla represents exactly the kind of entrepreneurship that the Enterprise Hub seeks to support, with engineering that can benefit. We are excited to continue to support Notpla on their scale up journey towards creating a more sustainable society – a key goal shared by the Academy.”
Notes for editors
- The Enterprise Hub was formally launched in April 2013. Since then, we have supported over 350 researchers, recent graduates and SME leaders to start up and scale up businesses that can give practical application to their inventions. We’ve awarded over £11 million in grant funding, and our Hub Members have gone on to raise over £1 billion in additional funding and create more than 6,000 jobs.
- The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone.
In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public.
Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.