Project Salt Run

Shaping a route for change

What happens when a system designed for control is approached through movement?

The Inland Customs Line, a 2,400 mile barrier built to enforce a colonial salt tax, once cut across India as a mechanism of extraction. It regulated trade, divided landscapes, and controlled resources at scale. Today, that same route becomes the foundation for The Salt Run, led by Hannah Cox. Rather than observing it, she runs it, transforming a line of division into a path of connection, reflection, and climate action.

What is Project Salt Run?

Project Salt Run is a purpose driven running challenge long the colonial route once used to control resources and people. The project reimagines this forgotten infrastructure as a symbol of connection and change, raising £1 million for four charities, including Frank Water, ClientEarth, Big Change, and 1% for the Planet. More than a physical challenge, it is a platform for collective action, inviting individuals and businesses to come together to support people, protect the planet, and contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.

Who is Hannah Cox?

Hannah may not be ultra runner, but taking on this challenge as her first experience of ultra distance, while continuing to lead a full time career focused on purpose driven business, is inspiring. 

She runs the Better Business Network, a community that brings together companies working towards meaningful change, and develops the Better Business Standard, a framework that supports businesses in taking practical, accountable steps towards more responsible practice.

This journey extends beyond the physical challenge. The route finishes in Kolkata, at the place where her father grew up, connecting her work, her heritage, and her personal story. Project Salt Run becomes more than a test of endurance. It reflects a commitment to understanding where she comes from, while contributing to a more considered future.

Redefining the meaning of value

Hannah runs the entire length of the line, completing 100 marathons in 100 consecutive days. Not as a professional athlete, but as a deliberate act of reframing. The project challenges how value is defined. What was once infrastructure built to extract wealth becomes a framework for questioning it, physically, repeatedly, and in public.

Within the built environment, value is often tied to permanence, scale, and newness. The Salt Run suggests something else. Value can be found in transformation, in reuse, and in engaging directly with the systems already in place.

Making it work

As the journey progresses half way through, after around 3,000 kilometres, the soles of Hannah’s trainers wear through. There are no replacements available. The solution is found at the roadside and a tyre repair workshop, provides strips of inner tube rubber, which they fixed directly to the base of the shoes, extending their life enough to keep moving.

It is a simple intervention, but it reflects a broader principle. Materials are not fixed in their purpose. With the right understanding, they can be adapted, extended, and reinterpreted.

Designing systems for endurance

Operating as a system and each day following a consistent rhythm of running, refuelling, and recovery repeated across changing environments.

Sourcing food locally, simple and functional meals. Mostly vegetarian, including porridge, eggs, and rice. Reducing reliance on complex supply chains and allowing the journey to adapt to place, including roadside meals and shared when possible

Living conditions kept minimal, living and sleeping in a single van supporting the entire operation. Limiting resources and every decision is being made with longevity in mind.

This is not optimisation for performance. It is design for endurance. Raising a parallel question for the built environment. How can systems operate with fewer inputs, less waste, and greater resilience over time?

From infrastructure to experience to community

Getting to experience the Inland Customs line infrastructure at human scale; highways, fields, canals, and communities intersect along the route, each shaping the experience differently. What was once a rigid system becomes something fluid, interpreted through movement, context, and time. Reflecting a broader truth that materials, like infrastructure, are not static, they exist within systems that evolve, degrade, and adapt.

Despite the scale of the challenge, the project depends on a small network. A team of four supporting the run, while moments of generosity and connection along the route become part of the system that sustains the challenge. Relying on collaboration, shared responsibility, and collective action. 

Supporting Project Salt Run

After 100 days concluding in Kolkata, the birthplace of Hannah’s father, connecting history, identity, and action through sustained effort.

Hannah’s journey asks for commitment, resilience, and a willingness to keep moving forward even when conditions are uncertain. That is exactly why it matters.

Her journey brings together honesty, courage, and care. It shows what it means to take responsibility in a real and visible way, to act rather than wait, and to stay open about the challenges along the way. It is grounded in people, shaped by community, and driven by something deeply personal. It is a reminder that performance and meaning are not separate, but interconnected.

This is why we support Hannah, our donation of £2,500 towards Project Salt Run helps her continue what she has started, creating impact for others and contributing to the change we all want to see. Project Salt Run project represents a kind of action that is rare, thoughtful, and genuinely impactful.

We are proud to stand behind her, and we will continue to support her as this journey, and what comes after it, continues to unfold.