Through Plant-Based Alternatives to Plastics, Iowa Alum Seeds Sustainability
PHOTO COURTESY NATURAL FIBER WELDING
Luke Haverhals received international recognition as an Earthshot Prize finalist after tackling the environmental problem of microplastics.
The average person ingests the equivalent of one credit card per week in microplastic particles, according to some scientific studies. Not only are these tiny bits of plastic swirling in Earth’s waters by the trillions, but they’re also floating in human bloodstreams and brains. Microplastics are everywhere on the planet—from Antarctica’s ice sheets to the Atlantic Ocean’s murkiest depths—and even in the clouds.
Luke Haverhals (08PhD) is keenly aware of the ways in which these invasive and invisible pollutants contribute to health and climate crises. That’s what drove the former chemistry professor to seek plant-based alternatives to plastics—and transform his discoveries into a revolutionary business that was a 2024 finalist for Prince William’s prestigious Earthshot Prize.
“We can’t afford to ignore our problems any longer.” —Luke Haverhals
“Many plastics are horribly toxic,” says Haverhals, who earned a doctoral degree in chemistry at Iowa before teaching at the U.S. Naval Academy and then Bradley University. “I’m the father of three beautiful girls, and I want them to live in a better world, so I asked myself, ‘What can I do about it?’”
Drawing on his chemistry knowledge and memories of the plants on his family farm near Sioux Center, Iowa, Haverhals turned to nature. There, he found the raw materials—everything from cotton and cork to tree sap and mineral pigments—that could help the global economy wean itself off plastics and fossil fuels.
Haverhals took those products from research bench to board room in 2015, when he established Natural Fiber Welding (NFW). The company’s mission is to produce high-performance materials that come from, and can safely return to, the earth—ensuring a “circular, low-carbon supply chain, from the ground up.”
“I’m a pretty simple guy, and I like to think of us as a recipe company,” he says. “We’re trying to birth a brand-new industry with plant ingredients and formulations that will work in existing manufacturing facilities.”
PHOTO COURTESY NATURAL FIBER WELDING
Natural Fiber Welding partnered with Stella McCartney to make this plant-based handbag.
A decade after its start, NFW uses these “recipes” to redesign auto interiors with BMW, collaborate with Stella McCartney’s luxury fashion label in making plant-based handbags, and assist Bared Footwear in transitioning to 100% biobased materials for its shoes.
Such pioneering partnerships earned the startup inclusion among last year’s Earthshot Prize finalists. Taking inspiration from John F. Kennedy’s 1962 “Moonshot” challenge, Prince William and renowned biologist David Attenborough launched this initiative in 2020. Each year, they award approximately $1.2 million to five ecological innovators, in hopes of fast-tracking solutions to some of the world’s most urgent environmental challenges.
Haverhals, who spent years courting potential business investors, knows exactly how difficult it will be to do so. Today’s global plastics market has a value of $609 billion, and subsidies in the fossil-fuel sector—the primary source of raw materials for plastics—have reached nearly $7 trillion. He believes NFW has the ability to scale and succeed in these powerful industries, but it will require time and resources.
“We can’t afford to ignore our problems any longer,” says Haverhals. “Humans have to take care of planet Earth; we don’t have any other habitable place to go.”