Community is at the heart of what we do at Botanicoir, and central to this is the local community in Sri Lanka, and our production centres in both Sri Lanka and India.<\/p>\n
Our director, Samantha Balasuriya, explains that community engagement for us is about really being part of that community, not just a business providing jobs. \u201cIt\u2019s important that we are ingrained in the community, as 30% of our employee base is local.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just about helping financially, it is about understanding what the issues are, and supporting the community with all the resources that we have at our disposal, to make an effective difference to local people. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn doing so, we hopefully become a force for good, and as a company, we benefit as well,\u201d says Samantha. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe use the phrase \u2018our Botanicoir family,\u2019 regularly. We started as a family business; just myself and my husband, Kalum, and his brother Chaminda, and other family members joined as we grew. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe treat our employees as family as well – we are a very close-knit group. That\u2019s how we introduce anyone new \u2013 with a \u2018welcome to the family\u2019 not just a welcome to the company,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Supporting community projects<\/strong><\/p>\n Sam explains that Botanicoir has been sponsoring a local orphanage in Sri Lanka since 2005. \u201cIt was originally set up for children left without parents after the devastating tsunami of 2004. We help the orphanage by providing sufficient food, educational materials, and maintenance, as well as special events for the children and the opportunity for work experience when they reach 18 years old and leave the orphanage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been involved in improvements to local infrastructure, helping the local schools to build what they need, and we have helped to bring things like electricity to remote areas, as well as roads,\u201d says Samantha. <\/p>\n \u201cIn the past our HR team has got children and schools involved in competitions and donated prizes to strengthen community bonds.<\/p>\n \u201cOn January 1 each year we organise a book donation for all our employees with children and we extended that to the local schools.<\/p>\n \u201cWe build really good relationships with local community leaders, religious leaders and school principals, who let us know some people were struggling to find the books they needed for their kids. We started this help after the first few years in business,\u201d she says, <\/p>\n At Botanicoir we are involved in a local orphanage, temples and events and keeping those bonds helps us to identify these sorts of needs.<\/p>\n Benefitting the environment <\/strong><\/p>\n Sam explains that Botanicoir is a member of LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) \u201cLEAF is about inspiring and enabling sustainable farming that is prosperous, enriches the environment and engages local communities \u2013 subjects close to our heart.<\/p>\n \u201cWe try to make significant changes to the business to benefit the environment and in 2015 we were proud to be the first coir substrate producer to install a state-of-the-art waste water treatment system to ensure that our growing business had nothing but positive effects on the local environment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have always offered recyclable plastic with our grow bags, but we wanted to go a step further in our commitment to global environmental sustainability. After years of research and trials, in 2019 we launched our first bio-degradable plastic for grow bags, which growers can simply mulch with the coir and spread on land, with zero negative impact on the local environment,” says Sam. <\/p>\n