Prince William to meet Earthshot winner Notpla after landmark deal

British heir will meet team behind seaweed-based food packaging company after it secured landmark contract

Britain's William, the Prince of Wales. AP

Prince William will meet a winner of the Earthshot Prize after the sustainable packaging company secured a landmark contract with a major British firm.

The royal will meet the team behind Notpla at the Kia Oval Cricket Ground in south London on Friday, Kensington Palace announced.

Notpla, which won Earthshot's Build a Waste-Free World award in 2022, recently signed a contract with catering company Levy UK and Ireland.

Under the deal, Levy will use an expected 75 million items of Notpla’s materials over the next three years across venues in the UK.

Prince William played a pivotal role in supporting the relationship between Notpla and Levy, having spoken to company representatives during a visit to Notpla’s London headquarters last year.

The packaging will be used at the Oval and other major sporting venues across the UK, including Twickenham, London’s O2 Arena and Wimbledon’s All England Lawn Tennis Club.

Earthshot 2022 nominee turns seaweed into plastic replacement - video

During the visit, the prince will hear first-hand how Notpla products will be used at the cricket ground and discuss the importance of sustainable packaging at large-scale events.

He will see the packaging in action during a brief demonstration in the venue’s kitchens.

Notpla produces various types of disposable packaging, which are fully biodegradable and even edible.

To date, its solutions have already replaced 7.2 million pieces of single-use plastic that would otherwise have entered the environment.

This year, it was announced that the Prince of Wales’s 2024 Earthshot Prize awards ceremony would be held in South Africa, raising the prospect of a royal visit to the country.

2022 Earthshot awards ceremony - in pictures

Singapore staged the most recent awards ceremony last November, after prize-giving events were held in Boston in 2022 and London’s Alexandra Palace in 2021.

Prince William founded the prize to recognise and scale up ideas to help repair the planet, with the five winning finalists each awarded £1 million to develop their ideas.

Awards are presented in five categories, or Earthshots: protect and restore nature; clean our air; revive our oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix our climate.

Earthshot organisers have received almost 2,500 nominations with almost 400 of those based in Africa, a continent with the lowest carbon-dioxide emissions but one of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.