Last week, our client and social entrepreneur, Jo Howarth was awarded the prestigious title of the Laureate for South Asia and Oceania in the 2020 Cartier Women’s Initiative for her business, Planet Protector Packaging, taking away USD$100,000. This is the first time Cartier have awarded an Australian/New Zealand business this prestigious honour.
The 12-month Cartier Women’s Initiative program provides women-led businesses invaluable support through a fellowship programme Involving peer learning, strategic financial modelling, communication training, and leadership skills as well as Social Capital through access to experts and a community of Impact Investor, International exposure, and ongoing business development support.
"Leading the Pack" is the company’s tagline, and indeed they are leading the sustainable packaging Industry.
Planet Protector Packaging uses sheep waste wool to produce an environmentally responsible and sustainable alternative to polystyrene. To date the business has replaced almost 6 million polystyrene bins from supply chains and diverted almost 3,000 tonnes of compressed polystyrene from landfill, equating to 44 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Providing a "game changing" sustainable solution in an industry so heavily reliant on plastic, Jo Howarth has created her flagship product, Woolpack, in 2016. This is used extensively in cold chain transport for the fast-growing e-commerce, seafood and pharmaceutical industries. The Planet Protector team are on a mission to eliminate polystyrene from around the globe.
Self-proclaimed seaso
ned entrepreneur and proud businesswoman, Howarth stated, “Being titled the Laureate for South Asia and Oceania in this year’s Cartier Women’s Initiative is an honour and I’m thrilled that Planet Protector Packaging has been acknowledged on this global scale. This recognition has only consolidated the positive work we do and the profound impact it Is having on our planet. We can now confidently say that Planet Protector Packaging is truly on it’s way to transforming supply chains around the world and is revolutionising the insulated packaging market.”
After working with polystyrene, an unsustainable type of plastic, while managing the production process for a large meal delivery company, Howarth saw first-hand, the detrimental amounts of non-biodegradable plastic that was being generated and disposed of. The eye-opening experience led to Howarth researching a viable solution that did not harm the planet.
Currently servicing the Australian and New Zealand market, Howarth and her team boast clients across multiple sectors including the likes of My Food Bag, Loving Earth and Mt Cook Alpine Salmon, adding, “At Planet Protector Packaging, we ensure we do our part in the circular economy by using material that would have been considered waste. We’re ultimately on a mission to remove polystyrene from our planet by providing a cost effective, sustainable, eco-friendly packaging and giving unwanted waste items another life through our products. This is only the beginning and we look forward to working with more sustainably minded businesses who are responding to customer pushback around non- sustainable packaging.”
To find out more about Jo Howarth’s work, Planet Protector Packaging and their message of Reuse, Recycle and Repurpose, visit: www.planetprotectorpackaging.com or follow them on Instagram @planetprotectorpackaging and Facebook at www.facebook.com/PlanetProtectorPackaging.