Salish Environmental Group receives $2.5M investment

Raven Indigenous Capital Partners, Vancouver, British Columbia, North America’s only Indigenous-led and -owned impact investment firm, has announced a $2.5 million investment in Salish Environmental Group Inc., the parent company of Salish Soils, a composting and waste recycling company located in shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation Territory in Sechelt, British Columbia, on the Sunshine Coast.

“Salish Environmental Group is successfully executing ... a huge vision that will fundamentally change the way that Indigenous people and all communities view how economic reconciliation, contemporary land stewardship and land remediation can be done without extraction and while healing the land,” Raven Indigenous Capital Partners states in a news release. “We are very excited to support the next phase of Salish’s growth and impact.”

Salish Environmental Group operates a number of environmental services from its Salish Soils facility in Sechelt, British Columbia. Salish is a leader in residuals management, from collection to processing, including fish waste, food scraps and biosolid residuals and works within the territories of the shíshálh, Skwxwu´7mesh U´xwumixw (Squamish), and the Tla'amin (formerly Sliammon) nations.

Salish Soils uses innovative processes to turn what would be garbage into value-added products including compost, fuel for energy and growing media for food production. Currently, 50 percent of the waste streams headed to the Sunshine Coast landfill are diverted to Salish’s facility for recycling and composting. Raven’s investment will enable the enhancement and expansion of several of Salish’s initiatives, including:

• reconfiguration of the company’s retail and commercial depot;
• development of finished storage for all composts and soil to allow for greater consistency throughout the season;
• creation of a branded bagged product;
• increased safety and efficiency of the recycling and sales area at the Sechelt facility; and
• sustained improvement in the social and environmental well-being of the people of the Sunshine Coast and the planet.

“I am a proud shíshálh Nation member, and I believe my role as an Indigenous entrepreneur is to create real lasting social impact within our community and to build a pathway toward economic reconciliation,” Salish Environmental Group CEO Aaron Joe says. 

Joe started the Salish Environmental Group with a vision of creating a secure closed-loop food system, which requires high-quality soil, a component that was missing on the Sunshine Coast.

“We are very intentional about creating win-win partnerships that share our mission to bring positive social and economic outcomes. I aim to transform how we think about waste, and I am grateful for Raven’s support,” Joe says.