Seagriculture Speaker

About the speaker:

Julia Marsh is the co-founder and CEO of Sway, a venture-backed materials company producing packaging made from seaweed. Julia is an interdisciplinary designer by trade, with over a decade spent building brand and packaging systems for consumer goods companies, technology startups, and design studios. Her career as a designer has been inspired by a lifelong affection for the ocean and the belief that designers must take part in solving the planet’s greatest challenges. In 2022, Julia was named a member of the Grist 50.

Company info: 

Sway is currently developing and scaling high-performance, home compostable, seaweed-based packaging. Sway packaging integrates seamlessly into existing plastic infrastructure, while simultaneously replenishing ocean health, sequestering carbon, and catalyzing a more inclusive environmental movement through regenerative design.

In 2022, Sway was named as a finalist in the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize. In 2021, Sway became a winner of the Beyond the Bag Challenge, sponsored by Closed Loop Partners and a consortium of global retailers. Sway's innovative work has been featured in publications including Vogue, Forbes, and Fast Company. The company is a member of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, and 1% for the Planet.

Presentation:

Seaweed materials have immense potential to create ecological and social impact, but many have yet to scale. How do we shift the current system towards regeneration? What is the real potential of the seaweed materials sector? This presentation aims to answer these questions, while sharing Sway’s approach to solving the plastic problem with the power of seaweed, creating a shared value model as we scale, and what is needed from the industry to get there.

Keywords: 

Bioplastic, packaging, plastics, seaweed, agar, alginate, carrageenan, scaling solutions