We speak to Julia Marsh, Co-Founder & CEO of Sway to celebrate her award-winning achievement of the TOM FORD Plastic Innovation Prize.

Tom Ford partnered with Lonely Whale to launch the TOM FORD Plastic Innovation Prize, the only global competition focused on creating scalable and biologically degradable alternatives to traditional thin-film plastic polybags. Sway was announced the winner of the TOM FORD Plastic Innovation Prize on March 9, 2023, at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards by Prize founder, Tom Ford.

Julia Marsh was a speaker at the Pentwards Festival 2022 as part of a panel discussion on Materiality sharing insights in global packaging design with a particular focus on Sustainability.

Tell us about yourself

Sway's story begins along the coast of California, where the forest meets the sea. That’s where I spent my childhood climbing trees, collecting hermit crabs, and playing jump rope with long strands of kelp. My love for nature led me to explore incredible ecosystems all over the world, and the more I saw, the more fascinated I became by our planet’s beauty – and also by the ubiquity of plastics spoiling and disfiguring even the most remote corners of Earth.

Julia Marsh, Panelist on New Materiality at the Pentawards Festival 2022

What is the story behind Sway? What inspired you and what is the driving force behind this?

As a designer building brand and packaging systems, I was often the person responsible for bringing plastic into the picture. Despite the growing sea of plastic alternatives, very few solutions are truly “better” for the planet in terms of feedstock, decomposition, inputs, and price. I began to wonder how I could help in the effort to beat plastic and improve beyond the limitations of existing alternatives. Despite not being a material scientist, I became obsessed with natural polymers and the concept of regeneration.

This obsession led me down the rabbit hole of existing materials that meet regenerative criteria – mycelium, scoby, microalgae, agricultural waste – they all give back to ecosystems one way or another. And then I arrived at seaweed…that same familiar marine material from my childhood. Of all the regenerative feedstocks on earth, seaweed is the most giving. It seemed to be the game-changing resource that could entirely disrupt the plastics industry.

Sway’s home-compostable, seaweed-based packaging 

Sway’s Seaweed Sample

Congratulations on winning the TOM FORD Plastic Innovation Prize! Can you tell us what it feels like to win such a prestigious award?

Thank you so much! It feels absolutely surreal. The calibre of the other finalists in the prize was really high, and the vetting process to win was incredibly rigorous. To earn first place, Sway had to excel across all judging categories: scale, cost, performance, biological degradation, and environmental & social impact alike. The news of our win has been validating to the whole Sway team – we’re more motivated than ever to eliminate plastic waste!

How can a seaweed-based, sustainable plastic substitute make a global impact?

By scaling next-generation materials made from seaweed, we have the opportunity to evolve entire supply chains, drive down demand for harmful petrochemicals, and actively heal natural systems from sea to soil. Imagine if every polybag, pouch, and wrapper had the power to rejuvenate ocean ecosystems while simultaneously contributing to the sequestration of tons of carbon, supporting coastal livelihoods through lasting employment, and creating healthy soil in your own backyard after use. That’s what we’re building here at Sway — materials that can help replenish the planet!

Sway's Clear Window Packaging

Can you tell us more about why sustainability is important to you?

At Sway, we like to focus on regeneration. “Regenerative” business goes beyond the call for sustainability by encouraging us to design not simply to avoid harm, but to restore and replenish our aching planet at every step of the value chain.

At Pentawards 2022, I heard Jon Marshall from Pentagram say, “80% of environmental waste is determined at the design stage.” That number blew me away. Imagine if designers implemented regenerative design practices into everything they did. We’d have healthier food, clean energy, thriving communities, efficient transportation…the list goes on.

The Sway team is just one of many emerging organisations seeking to enable a system that actively heals the planet, with the goal of bringing regenerative design into wider practice.

Sway’s team 

What’s next for Sway?

We are thrilled to share that Sway’s first public-facing pilots are slated to launch this Spring! Through a select group of key brands in apparel and home goods, these campaigns are designed for us to gain valuable end-user feedback and shape an enabling environment for our products as they become more widely available.

Building from the results of the pilots, Sway is planning for a larger-scale launch with outdoor, apparel, and food brands in both retail and e-commerce applications. In tandem, we will expand our product offering in partnership with a small selection of strategic brand partners.

Sway’s Colourful Swatch 

If you could share one message with the packaging design community, what would it be?

We see packaging as a tool for regenerating oceans and soil.

Conscious material selection enables us to transform packaging from potential waste into potential life. Packaging becomes tangible sustainability storytelling, held to the same standards of traceability and responsibility that brands hold for their primary products. In this way, packaging can be more than a material! It’s what helps us bring about a thriving future.

Find out more about Sway here and follow Julia Marsh here.