The Australian company that looked at a pile of waste wool and saw the end of the polystyrene box.
The Story
Every year Australian farms generate mountains of coarse waste wool - too dirty, too short, too cheap to sell. For decades it was dumped, burned, or paid to be hauled away. Joanne Howarth looked at that pile and saw insulation.
In 2016 she founded Planet Protector, betting that the same fibre keeping a sheep warm on a winter hillside could keep a vaccine cold across a continent. The product, WOOLPACK, is deceptively simple: felted waste wool sealed into food-grade liners, dropped into boxes, pouches and postal packs. It insulates temperature-sensitive goods for more than 120 hours, then breaks down in a home compost bin.
The target was polystyrene - light, cheap, effective, and nearly immortal in landfill. Rather than engineer a better foam, Planet Protector removed the need for one. Nearly a decade on, the company reports it has pulled roughly 20 million polystyrene boxes out of supply chains and diverted around 8,000 tonnes of wool from landfill.
The circularity cuts two ways. Wool that once cost farmers money to dispose of now earns them income - close to $15 million returned to growers, by the company's count. Waste became raw material; a cost line became a revenue line.
By The Numbers
"Manufacturing environmentally responsible insulated packaging made from sheep waste wool for the transport of temperature-sensitive goods."
Figures are company-reported and approximate.
The Business
Turns waste wool and recycled fibre (denim, poly) into circular insulation - for cold-chain packaging and, more recently, buildings. Vertically integrated around its own fibre-processing facility.
More than 400 impact-driven B2B businesses across Oceania - including Baxter, Blackmores, Merck and Vics Meat - shipping food, wine, e-commerce and pharmaceutical goods that must stay temperature-stable.
Cold chains rely on polystyrene that never breaks down and clogs landfill. WOOLPACK matches the thermal performance while being home-compostable and dramatically lower-carbon.
Wool vs Polystyrene
Grey bar: polystyrene. Teal bar: WOOLPACK. End-of-life is where the gap widens most - foam lingers for centuries; wool composts at home. Figures are company-reported lifecycle estimates.
Products & Services
Thermal insulated boxes, pouches and postal packs from sheep waste wool. Keeps pharma, food and wine stable for 120+ hours; home-compostable; around 41% lower carbon than conventional options.
Circular insulation panels for construction, made from wool, denim and recycled polyester - the same fibre technology moved into the built environment.
Custom manufacturing for other brands using sustainable and recycled fibre - impact cushioning, liners and geotextiles.
Processing and repurposing textile and wool fibre across packaging, construction and geotextile uses - monetising waste streams that would otherwise be landfilled.
Positioning
The sustainable-packaging field is crowded with recycled paper, mushroom mycelium and other wool insulators. Planet Protector's edge is vertical integration: it owns the fibre processing, so it controls quality, supply and cost in a way resellers cannot. Its plant can handle up to 150 tonnes of fibre a week - described as the most advanced of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
The business model is straightforwardly B2B. WOOLPACK sells per-unit and on contract to shippers who need cold-chain performance, backed by contract manufacturing and a new building-insulation line. Growth tracks two forces: companies retiring polystyrene for ESG reasons, and regulators tightening rules on single-use foam.
Against pure-play packaging rivals, Planet Protector competes on lifecycle numbers and local manufacturing. Against foam incumbents, it competes on the one axis foam can't defend - what happens after the box is opened.
It is certified woman-owned and woman-led, and counts itself among Unreasonable Group's global impact ventures - signals that matter to the procurement teams increasingly writing sustainability into their supplier criteria.
The Founder
An economics graduate of the University of Sydney with an MBA and a social-entrepreneurship background, Howarth spent 25 years in food and beverage before starting Planet Protector. In Australian industry circles she's known simply as "the Packaging Queen."
In 2020 she was named Australia's first-ever Cartier Women's Initiative Laureate. In 2023 she joined EY's Entrepreneurial Winning Women Asia-Pacific class - the same year she closed a $12 million Series A after a 15-month raise she has been candid about, citing how much harder capital comes to female founders in hard-tech manufacturing.
Role: Founder & CEO
Founded: 2016
HQ: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Team: ~18 employees
Latest raise: $12M Series A (2023)
Recognition: Cartier Women's Initiative Laureate, EY Winning Women APAC, Banksia Gold
Timeline
Joanne Howarth launches the company to replace polystyrene with wool-based thermal packaging.
Howarth becomes Australia's first-ever Cartier Women's Initiative Laureate.
Woolpack wins Gold at the Australian Banksia Sustainability Awards and takes the inaugural Circle Awards.
Impact investors back a 15-month raise funding a new fibre-processing facility; Howarth joins EY Winning Women APAC.
The company extends its wool and recycled-fibre technology into circular construction insulation.
Questions
Circular insulation from waste wool and recycled fibre - most notably WOOLPACK thermal packaging for cold-chain logistics, plus a building-insulation line and contract manufacturing services.
WOOLPACK provides comparable thermal performance but is home-compostable, uses around 70% less water, and is cited as producing roughly 290x lower greenhouse gas emissions than polystyrene.
Over 400 B2B businesses across Oceania, including Baxter, Blackmores, Merck and Vics Meat, spanning food, wine, e-commerce and pharmaceuticals.
Joanne Howarth founded the company in 2016. She is an economics and MBA graduate with 25 years in food and beverage and is Australia's first Cartier Women's Initiative Laureate.
It closed a $12 million Series A from impact investors in 2023, on top of earlier government grant and crowdfunding support.
Connect & Watch
Dossier compiled from public sources · Figures company-reported and approximate