Nominee #3 – Blue Ocean Closures – Lars Sandeberg, CEO

Turning the tide on plastic, cap by cap.

Sometimes the biggest impact starts with the smallest details. Blue Ocean Closures is reinventing something most people throw away without a second of thought: the bottle cap. Their innovation? A fiber-based screw cap that dramatically reduces plastic waste and biodegrades naturally in the environment.

Made primarily from sustainably sourced paper fibers, the cap is strong, lightweight, and designed to fit existing bottling systems. It’s sealed with a thin barrier layer to ensure product safety but uses up to 85% less plastic than traditional caps.

It’s a simple switch with massive potential. With billions of caps produced every year, replacing plastic with renewable materials could keep tons of waste out of our oceans and bring us one step closer to a truly circular packaging system.