Meet Elisa Harley: A Groundbreaker with a green thumb and bold vision to cut plastic waste

Presented as a Q&A, this conversation unpacks the origins of Enivo Pots, the challenges of developing sustainable manufacturing in New Zealand, and what the founder, Elisa Harley, hopes to gain from the evoke^AG. Groundbreakers program.

Where did your journey of product development an innovation begin?

During COVID lockdown I’d built a greenhouse with my Dad to grow native plants for sale to nurseries. The 700 odd plants in the greenhouse meant 700 single-use pots – I think anyone who has ever been into gardening can relate to the stash of plastic pots in the corner of the garage or garden. Every year 350 million plastic pots are used in New Zealand annually.

To me it seems counter intuitive that planting trees creates plastic waste. I saw what plastic was doing around the world – that it was bad but that we had just decided to keep using it because it was convenient. When trees in plastic pots are planted on-farm in New Zealand chances are those pots end up in landfill because in a biosecurity concern zone, each of those pots needs to be individually sterilized and that’s costly.

Taking part in some entrepreneur and business innovations competitions through high school validated my belief that plastic pots were a huge problem and that there was demand for a solution.

Your solution is biodegradable pots made from primary industry residue, how did you go from idea to founding the start-up?

I came up with the idea for Enivo Pots in mid-2022 and it was officially incorporated as a company a few months ago. In between has been everything from creating prototypes with a blender in my kitchen, research and conversations with industry professionals, through to grant applications and collaboration with Scion Research (New Zealand’s forestry research institute).

That partnership with Scion has allowed me to refine the manufacturing process and test the product in commercial settings, to ensure the pots are durable enough for nursery use while being biodegradable once planted.

Seeing my pots out in trials with plants and hearing feedback from nurseries has been huge validation.

What sets your innovation apart from some of the other alternatives?

Although there may be other biodegradable plant pots, the materials they are made from are not very sustainable, for example harvesting peat.

In New Zealand you can buy biodegradable pots at the supermarket but if you need 100,000 trees then they come in a plastic pot or plastic bag. Other alternatives are also very expensive, so my innovation is targeting large-scale commercial nursery production.

What were some of the challenges you’ve overcome?

One was shifting my mindset from believing my youth and lack of experience was a negative to realising that it’s an opportunity. For example, at a conference when I was 16 speaking to a group of older people who were wanting to burn wood chips to make energy – there I was promoting my idea for biodegradable pots. That internal imposter syndrome is something I’ve had to navigate.

I’ve come to understand that it’s such a privilege to be the youngest and least experienced in a room because you can just absorb information and there’s grace to make mistakes. Along the way I’ve reached out, found the right people who’ve supported me, and when people said no, I’ve thanked them for their time and asked them to connect with somebody else.

From a technical perspective, I’ve realised is that New Zealand isn’t set up for manufacturing, but I’ve been quite stubborn because I wanted my products to be made here. Hopefully we’re coming to the other end of that now and having that local manufacturer will be a big weight off my shoulders.

We’re also looking at patenting the process we use to pulp the primary industry residues on a commercial scale and having that formula available for other applications and potentially exporting it overseas.

What attracted you to the evoke^AG. Ground breakers program and what do you hope to get out of it?

One of the things that the evoke^AG. Groundbreakers program brings is the investment in us- the young people taking part – through the mentoring program to develop our storytelling and presentation on stage.

evoke^AG. in Melbourne will be an incredible opportunity to share my innovation and I’m keen to have conversations with people who might have the technical abilities to help with the research side of the project into pulp processing within New Zealand.

I also want to raise awareness about why we should be innovating for the planet. It’s not driven by a ‘woke’ ideology but because the circular economy is just pure logic. Landfills are not black holes – there is a physical space that we put our rubbish into and as we grow it take up more space. The second thing I want to highlight is that young people can bring tangible action, we are creative, ready to lead the charge and be a part of the conversations.