Central Garden & Pet Company invests in eco pet product startup Project Blu

The company’s original mission was to reduce global ocean-bound plastic waste by converting it into sustainable fabric designs. As the business has grown, it has established itself as a global leader in tackling the pet industry’s wider environmental issues. These include reducing carbon emissions and water waste in addition to developing a circular lifecycle for pet products.

Since launching in May 2019, Project Blu has sold more than 200,000 premium pet products across the globe and has converted in excess of 12 million plastic bottles into sustainable designs. 

Back in 2020, Mars Petcare also invested in the business when it took part of the Leap Venture Studio accelerator programme. Thirty-six-year-old founder and CEO Geryn Evans was also selected as one of the ‘next generation of purpose leaders’ by Harvard Business School.

“Most pet owners do not realise that polyester is an oil-based plastic and the manufacturing comes with extremely high levels of carbon emissions and water waste. By swapping to sustainable alternatives, we can reduce carbon emissions by up to 85% and water waste by 75%,” said Geryn Evans, Project Blu founder and CEO.

“To put this into perspective, if every pet owner in the U.K. decided to swap their traditional dog beds to a sustainable alternative, it could save over 175,000 tons of CO2 and the equivalent of over 300 million bathtubs of water every year. It would also save over 30,000 barrels of crude oil. This highlights the significant difference that can be achieved by raising awareness and making small changes to our daily activities.”