Winners of the Sininen pallo (Blue globe) 2023 are the founders of Kamupak, Iida Miettinen, Karri Lehtonen and Eero Heikkinen

Winners of Sininen pallo 2023: IIda Miettinen, Karri Lehtonen and Eero Heikkinen.

The Sininen pallo was awarded for the third time on 30.11.2023. The winners offer scalable solutions to overcome the environmental crisis. The award is presented by the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation, the Tiina and Antti Herlin Foundation and Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland.

The 2023 Sininen pallo was awarded to the three founders of Kamupak: Iida Miettinen, Karri Lehtonen and Eero Heikkinen. The total value of the prize is €100 000 and will be shared equally between the winners. The solution developed by Kamupak’s founders reduces the need for environmentally damaging disposable takeaway food packaging and allows consumers to choose a more sustainable packaging for their takeaway. Kamupak’s solution is to provide restaurants with reusable packaging that stays in circulation through a digital deposit.

“With the Sininen pallo award, we want to highlight that consumer behaviour change has a significant role in overcoming the ecological crisis. But the responsibility cannot rest on the shoulders of individuals. That’s why we want to reward innovations that enable and facilitate large-scale behaviour change,” says Katja Bargum, Science and Executive Director of the Nessling Foundation, who chaired the prize’s working group.

Reducing single-use food packaging is important for many reasons. Food packaging waste is difficult to recycle for hygiene reasons and therefore often ends up in incineration or landfill. Disposable packaging is so widely used that even making it from renewable raw materials is not a sustainable solution in the long term, because so much raw material is needed. Long-term use of takeaway food packaging reduces the pressure to use bio-based raw materials such as wood for packaging.

The Sininen pallo jury sees that, if successfully scaled up, the winning solution could pave the way for the sustainability of the takeaway and fast food sector.

 “We are overwhelmed and grateful for this significant environmental recognition, which shows us that we have spent our energy on the right thing. We hope that this recognition will also encourage other entrepreneurs to question established consumption patterns for a more sustainable and circular planet,” says one of Kamupak’s founders Iida Miettinen.

Read the long award citation below

The winners of Sininen pallo, Blå globen 2023 are boldly tackling a big problem: getting rid of environmentally damaging and disposable takeaway food packaging.

 Food packaging waste is difficult to recycle for hygiene reasons. The solution that we are awarding today, allows consumers to choose more sustainable and reusable packaging for their takeaway foods.

The winners have succeeded in creating a business model, with a digital platform and innovative logistics, that works in a dispersed restaurant market. They have also calculated how much their business model reduces waste and carbon emissions compared to single-use packaging.

At the moment, disposable packaging is used in such huge quantities that making it from renewable raw materials is not a sustainable solution in the long term. Long-term use of takeaway food packaging reduces the pressure to use bio-based raw materials such as wood as packaging material.

This winning innovation shows leadership, as it already responds to a new EU regulation to reduce single-use packaging, which is only just coming into force.