Sustainability drives every decision at Salix, guiding how we design, build and restore the natural environment. Every product we make and every project we deliver is designed to work in harmony with the natural environment, restoring balance, improving biodiversity, and supporting the landscapes that sustain us all.

Whether we’re creating wetlands, restoring rivers, or protecting embankments, our solutions use natural materials and living systems to deliver long lasting results. This commitment extends beyond what we do to how we do it shaping the way we grow, manufacture, innovate, and operate every day.

Much of our sustainability story begins at our nurseries. Between Croxton and Laugharne, we grow millions of native, peat-free wetland and aquatic plants each year. Every plant has a role to play from filtering water and stabilising soil to creating habitat and capturing carbon. Wetlands are among the planet’s most effective carbon sinks, and by cultivating our plants in wet bed systems before they’re installed on site, we ensure they’re ready to thrive and deliver immediate ecological benefit.

Our approach to sustainability also extends to the materials we use. For over two decades, Salix has led the way in the use of coir fibre, a renewable byproduct of the coconut industry, as a sustainable alternative to synthetic erosion control materials. Each shipping container of coir fibre we import is packed with material from around 80,000 to 100,000 coconuts, all of which have absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grew.

We source this fibre only from organically managed, ethically run plantations with full traceability and environmental oversight.

Unlike many in the industry, Salix manufactures its coir products entirely in the UK. We have invested heavily in specialist machinery that allows us to expand, and process compressed coir fibre on site, something no other company in the UK can currently do. This innovation means one container of raw coir fibre produces up to 3,700 metres of finished coir rolls, around 80–90% more efficient than shipping ready-made products that largely transport air. Our manufacturing facility is powered by a 50kW solar PV array, and our production process supports local employment while dramatically reducing shipping emissions.

The coir we process is then used to create our pre-planted rolls, pallets and mattresses, which are grown in our nurseries for one to two years before being installed in the landscape. At any given time, over 800,000 plants are establishing within these coir systems, creating ready to install solutions that provide instant stability and kick-start habitat creation. Together, the coconuts and the wetland plants sequester far more carbon than is produced during shipping or manufacture, meaning no carbon offsetting is needed. Our products genuinely store more carbon than they emit.