At Salix, we see carbon not just as an emission to be managed, but as a resource that nature can capture and store when given the right conditions. Our work restoring rivers, constructing wetlands, and creating nature-based erosion control systems directly supports the removal of carbon from the atmosphere and its long-term storage within healthy, functioning ecosystems.

Wetlands, saltmarshes, and seagrass meadows are among the most effective natural carbon sinks on earth. They absorb and hold carbon at rates far higher than most terrestrial ecosystems, locking it away in vegetation, root systems and sediment for centuries.

Through our nurseries at Croxton and Laugharne, we are growing the living infrastructure that makes this possible. Every year, we produce millions of peat-free native plants, from reeds and sedges to saltmarsh and seagrass species, which form the foundation of these carbon-storing habitats. When these plants are established within our projects, they don’t just stabilise banks or improve water quality they begin the process of natural carbon sequestration.

Our wetbeds and propagation systems allow plants to grow strong, established root networks before they are installed on site, ensuring that they continue absorbing and storing carbon from the moment they are planted.

Coir and carbon

Coir, a renewable by-product of the coconut industry is at the heart of many of our solutions. Each shipping container of coir fibre is made up of material from **around 80,000 to 100,000 coconuts, which have already absorbed large volumes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during growth.

We source our coir from organically managed, ethically run plantations, ensuring full traceability and sustainable land management. The fibre is shipped in its most compressed, efficient form, before being expanded and manufactured into coir rolls and pallets at our UK site, powered by solar energy.

Because the coconuts have already sequestered carbon and the fibre is a by-product of an existing agricultural process, the carbon balance of our coir products is inherently positive. For every container we import, our competitors would need to ship up to six, meaning our method avoids thousands of tonnes of unnecessary transport emissions each year.

Once manufactured, our pre-planted coir systems are grown in wet conditions for one to two years, allowing plant roots to bind through the fibre. When installed on site, these systems continue to capture and store carbon within both the vegetation and the natural fibres themselves, which biodegrade safely over time, returning organic carbon to the soil and sediment.

Measuring our impact

Across all our activities. from material sourcing to plant cultivation we focus on real carbon capture, not just carbon offsetting. The combined carbon absorbed by coconut growth and by the wetland plants we cultivate far exceeds the emissions associated with shipping, processing, and installation.

In other words, our supply chain and product life cycle are net carbon negative and the natural systems we use and create remove more carbon than we emit.

Innovation for a low carbon future

Salix continues to invest in research, technology and design that expand the potential for carbon storage in nature-based systems. Working with universities and research partners, we are exploring the carbon dynamics of different natural fibres and plant communities, identifying how best to accelerate sequestration and improve long-term storage.

At our Laugharne Nursery, in partnership with Project Seagrass, we are helping to restore the UK’s lost seagrass meadows, one of the most powerful natural carbon sinks in the world. Seagrass can capture carbon up to 35 times faster than tropical forests, locking it away in seabed sediments for millennia. By cultivating seagrass and saltmarsh plants on an inland site with access to both saltwater and freshwater, we are building the capacity to deliver large-scale blue carbon restoration across the UK.

Salix’s work demonstrates that carbon reduction and carbon capture can happen hand in hand. We are reducing our operational footprint through peat-free growing, renewable energy, reusable materials and efficient logistics while simultaneously creating and enhancing habitats that actively remove carbon from the atmosphere.

We don’t offset carbon we grow it