Going Green in the Floral Business Adds Colour to Social Responsiblity

Going green inside a flower shop is a bit of an oxymoron. But going green as a business, not only is socially responsible but as necessary today as social media is to customers' views inside your business landscape.

With Earth Day on April 22nd, even the smallest businesses might be advantaged with some kind of participation. We've matured in the nearly 30 years since kindness to your supplier--Mother Earth-- became a good thing. If just the plastic bags and catalogues distributed in the US last year took 12 million barrels of oil, what can a floral retailer do to contribute to the greening of things?

SOCIAL ACTION IS A GREEN ACTION

In a recent survey it was interesting to learn that the numbers of those coming to the 'green' movement in the last five years are about the same as the numbers who have been environmentally active for the past 30 years. And, get this, if you're a blogger your're more apt to think green. About 66 per cent of respondents were bloggers.

GREENING OF ADVERTISING

Going green means that businesses will be jockeying for position inside local advertising media that are seeking out businesses to double-tap their advertising coffers. It started here in early 2008 when Yellow Pages offered free listings if you could vow that your business was demonstrating some visible green intent. One of the criteria being considered was how you promoted the green factor, so that helped get this page up although we've been mulching and recycling before it was fashionable and conscious of fair trade flowers and the pesticide hazards to workers in the South American rose farms.

Last year our brides pushed things up a notch as they wanted organic elements like twigs and pods inside bouquets and they sourced seedlings as green gifts for their guests.

GREEN: HERE AND THERE

Having integrity in business today also includes some consideration of being eco-friendly, so we met with our rose importer for reassurance that our South American roses were from fair trade farms.Reassurance is in the logo on each box that validates the farm is certified to use this label. In that,they must meet certain green standards such as recycling, replacement of certain toxic pesticides with safer ones, soil conservation and protection and benefits to workers.

Canadian designer, Derrick Foss, was quoted in the Canadian Florist that "Florists are looking for local suppliers and beginning to ask more questions. It's hard to tell a bride who wants organic flowers at her wedding that she's limited to an African violet. By buying at the flower auction we access all the local growers from the Chilliwack Valley to Vancouver Island. Going green is great when peddlars come with the wonderful residue of local pruning jobs that would otherwise be in a landfill.

FLOWER COMPOST

Wrapping flowers has always been individual and is part of an overall branding. When we bought the business in 1991, the owner's bouquets stood out as they were fastidiously square-wrapped and bowed. I tried several corner-wraps, tissue papered and not,sisel bows and ...and returned to the square wrap. It rains a lot here and for a courier delivering a bouquet in the pouring rain, with a bouquet wrapped in paper as Designer Kathy Mustard says is the favourable thing to cello, the paper would be a sodden mess. It would be unattractive. Our bouquets arrive unscathed and the cellophane magnifies the intensity of colours. It may be appropriate to ask the recipient to recycle, as I'm sure many gift baskets will attest at Christmas.Designer Hitomi Gillam made the point that "flowers are of the earth and their impermanence is part of their beauty. They don't lie in a landfill like computer hardware does."

So beyond the greenspeak of sustainability, what can we do, really?

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