Our Beyond Sustainable initiative goes beyond standard stewardship of our planet, we are dedicated to taking one step further and make industry-wide improvements. We aim to demonstrate how the success of businesses should continually feed back into their roots, enriching their local environment and uplifting the communities supporting them.
Founded in the home of the coconut, we are committed to caring for and bettering the coconut industry worldwide. With the global demand for coconuts rising, we invest in local communities, infrastructure, and excellent working conditions, further strengthening the long-term sustainability of the sector and helping to cultivate a resilient and reliable coir industry to support the future of global food production.
Deeply embedded in the culture, environment and economics of Sri Lanka, the humble coconut provides a plentiful resource for a variety of industries from food to cosmetics and, of course, agriculture.
Sri Lanka sits within the “coconut triangle,” a region naturally suited to coconut cultivation, where palms grow year-round, thriving in their native environment. Founded in the home of the coconut, Botanicoir’s love of this fruit and what it means to Sri Lanka, maintains a commitment to caring for and bettering the coconut industry worldwide.
The coconut industry in Sri Lanka also has strong social sustainability benefits. It supports hundreds of thousands of rural livelihoods, from small-scale farmers to processing communities, often in regions where alternative income opportunities are limited.
With the popularity of coconuts increasing, we invest in local communities, infrastructure, and fair working conditions, further strengthening the long-term sustainability of the sector.
At Botanicoir, we transform a waste-product of the coconut industry into high-performance coir substrates, unlocking the full potential of this naturally abundant resource. If this coir is not recycled into substrate, it is often burned by plantations.
With millions of coconuts harvested every year, the supply of raw material remains consistently strong and renewable. As more growers recognise the performance and sustainability benefits of coir, this scalable, waste-derived resource is well positioned to meet rising global demand.
On average, coconut trees store 24.1 tonnes of carbon per hectare – the equivalent of removing 9,136 cars from roads for a day.
With intercropping, our plantations are expected to capture even more.
Our 8 facilities, around Sri Lanka and India are surrounded by beautiful tropical landscapes. These habitats give us the products we use to create our growing media, so for us, giving back and protecting the local environment is the only right option. Using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as a framework, we’re dedicated to enriching and protecting the environment around us, not only to ensure a sustainable supply of coconuts as demand grows, but as a stewardship passed on to future generations.
With the help of our Environmental Scientist, Naomi, along with the guidance of local and international expertise, we continually invest in research and innovations that will not only improve our own manufacturing facilities but will hopefully be adopted by the wider coir production industry, as a new standard. Find out what we have been implmenting below.
Naomi, Botanicoir’s Environmental Scientist
A big part of our motivation behind Beyond Sustainable, is a drive to make industry-wide changes. A ripple effect up and down the supply chain, engaging our partners and customers to improve their own sustainability practices. Growing with Botanicoir helps growers to meet sustainability requirements, for certifications such as LEAF, through a structured approach to substrate assessment, management, and industry engagement.
This starts with a review of growing media to identify risks such as disease, saturation, and contamination, alongside evaluating reuse, disposal, and sterilisation practices. We also provide guidance on extending substrate lifespan and support tailored management plans to improve water retention, drainage, aeration, and overall durability.
With supermarkets increasing their consideration on sustainability accreditations when searching for suppliers, we’re keen to produce a growing media that will support our growers to win more sales while also doing good for the environment. Get in touch to learn more about our sustainable substrate solutions.
Our commitment goes beyond sustainable products. With Kalum and Samantha at the helm, a deep-rooted dedication to the local Sri Lankan community shapes everything we do, investing in the people and places at the heart of our supply chain.
As demand for coir grows, so does our responsibility to support, protect, and uplift these communities, ensuring long-term wellbeing, opportunity, and shared growth.
Within the first year of founding Botanicoir, we began sponsoring a local orphanage, set up following the tragic Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. Since then, we’ve witnessed how many lives can be touched by sharing the global successes of coir, one of Sri Lanka’s biggest exports, back into the local community.
As the business continues to grow, and demand for the native crop of Sri Lanka increases, it’s important we care for the local community who proudly work hard every day to help produce world-class substrate from the humble coconut.
Watch our video, interviewing some of those involved in caring for the local community of our Sri Lankan facility, to hear how we’ve made an impact.
Our journey is shaped not only by what we produce, but by the impact we create along the way. From long-standing community partnerships to
one-off initiatives that respond to immediate needs, each milestone reflects our ongoing commitment to supporting and uplifting the people around
us. These moments highlight how, year after year, we continue to invest in our communities as we grow together.
We host seminars on a variety of topics, from personal financial planning for this year’s International Women’s Day to teaching plastic pollution awareness at a local school.
Launched in 2013, now running for 13 years, our annual ‘Gifts from Us’ event donates supplies, school bags, stationary and books to employees and local schools.
We provide support to 11 temples including, funding maintenance and repairs, donating food and other goods and covering the cost of medical treatment for monks.
In 2024, after receiving a heartfelt request from the local community, we completed the construction of an outpatient’s wing at the local Dankotuwa Hospital.
In Sri Lanka, coconut trees are known as the ‘tree of life’ as every part has a use. In 2025, we donated some juvenile trees to the local community for planting around the village.
We’ve supported 15 schools and colleges by donating resources, funding trips and sponsoring exhibitions, sports competitions and hosting apprenticeships.
We join in international days of celebration such as Women’s Day, hosting a personal finance seminar, Earth Day and more.
From Sri Lankan New Year celebrations, Deepawali and Poson we regularly celebrate cultural holidays, bringing the team together.
Reflecting our drive to help each-other and work together, we hosted a blood donation event for employees to volunteer to donate.
We host creative competitions for staff and their children, including a team-building art competition during COVID-19 and a poetry competition in May 2024.
To celebrate Botanicoir’s 20th anniversary, we were proud to announce a very special project: the funding of a new library at the Wajira Buddhi Orphanage here in Sri Lanka.
Designed as a dedicated space for study, the library will be a lasting gift to support education and create new opportunities for the children who call the orphanage home. We would like to extend a huge thank you to our growers for their continued support, which makes initiatives like this possible.
Kalum, Sam and Chaminda Balasuriya, Founders
Our Beyond Sustainability initiative is not a one-off push. It’s a commitment and a promise to tie sustainability to our growth strategy indefinitely and also a framework for other coir manufacturers to copy.
As we continue to grow, we hope our knowledge will increase, our resources will expand and our ability to invest in practices which improve the environment and people will only get better.
With the help of our like-minded network, loyal to quality, respectful to environment, driven by care and motivated by the collaborative force of our industry, we’re determined to shape the sustainable future of agriculture, ensuring a healthy and secure food supply globally, for generations to come.
