Florist News

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone could help me in just posting a discussion on this whole business with the floristry industry and carbon footprints!! It seems to be a hot topic at the moment about what impact the floristry market is having on the environment, and in doing so having an effect on customers' buying patterns.

I'm currently at Bishop Burton College in East Yorkshire doing my 3rd year of a BA (Hons) in Floristry Design, and this dissertation will be the culmination of everything I have done.
However there is very little information in books and journals relating to carbon footprints and its effect on floristry retail and wholesale, and so I have decided to look at it from a discursive point of view, by both people within the industry, and also public / customer views on buying "green".

Any thoughts anyone may have would be greatly appreciated!!

I will of course be popping back in and out to check on progress and also keep you informed of how the dissertation is progressing!

Many thanks...am hoping the topic will stir up some interesting debate!!

Chris

Hi Chris,

Could you be a little more specific, to get the discussion started? Ask a direct question and you are more likley to recieve our responses.

Personally I think the whole carbon thing is a storm in a tea cup, but what the customer wants the customer gets. From reading other threads though, I think the customers aught to be careful that they are buying 'cabon free' carefully. If something looks like an english rose and is marketed like an english rose, it isn't always grown in england (DA!).

__________________
Newbee

didn't even know you could do a ba hons in floristry when did that start i couldn't go any futher than city guilds III now i believe nvq3 so what is the difference i thought the next step was icsf and ndsf so where does you ba hons come into the scale of flristry education??

Loads of courses here (including BA Floristry) that i didn't even know about!

www.hull.ac.uk/quality/downloads/CPRegister.doc

__________________

Try http://www.flowercouncil.org/uk/ look at some of the links and they may lead you to some of the info you are looking for.

I worry about the impact my business has on the environment
From having flower/sundries flown from all around the world to using my car on short journeys...
I always take any natural waste (flowers, greenery, excess) to a local amenity site to be made into compost and I offer it free to locals and gardening clubs.
Every little helps right?
PM me if you wanna ask any questions

__________________
http://www.flowerangel.org

Yeah I see what you mean Newbee I should have perhaps phrased it differently. I guess more specific questions would be...

Do you think there is anything the industry could do to reduce their carbon footprint?

Do you think the recent interest about carbon footprints will affect the sales of flowers in general or mostly for us as retail florists?

Probably one final question would be:

Is there enough supply and demand for environmentally friendly florists? That is to say enough supply & choice of environmentally grown flowers and a customer market to which to sell them to?

I hope these are perhaps a bit more like what could start a bit of a discussion...

Hope to hear from many of you soon!

Chris

Have been digging around sites, books and journals...have managed to find quite a bit of info on the topic!!

HOWEVER....Apparently what I need now is some healthy debate about the topic from traders (and even growers of there are any on here?)

I have a questionnaire together to get info back from the customers, but it has been suggested by my tutor that I need to get a general idea of how the retail industry feels about the problem (or if we even feel there is a problem!?) and anything they may have implemented to become more environmentally friendly...

I hope I am asking the right questions on the Forum! Will have to be patient and hope debate follows!

Many thanks to those who have already posted...every little helps!!

Chris

I read an interesting article about this a while back, think was in FWB, it discussed the pros and cons and how it's not a black and white issue. Things like:
- flowers from africa/s america are often transported on scheduled flights which would be flying anyway
- cost of heat and light for growing under glass in europe vs the more friendly climate of african/s american countries so less energy used to produce them
- benefit to the global economy of providing employment to people in developing countries

My tuppence ha'penny
- brides who express an interest in low carbon footprint flowers soon loose interest when they discover that they can't have roses/orchids/lily of the valley/etc cos the seasonally available UK grown blooms are daffs/xanths/dahlias/etc
- consumers want and expect more choice, out of season blooms etc, this is not going to be forthcoming from UK grown flowers
- I just can't get UK grown flowers, even though some are grown virtually on my doorstep, the growers are geared up to supply the supermarkets, not little me with my 20 stems of X, 50 stems of Y 2/3 times a week.
- cost of transportation of small quantities of flowers from multiple locations vs one big delivery of everything on a dutch lorry
- it's bad for the independant florist cos the supermarkets are in a position to buy british and we aren't
- it seems to contradict other programmes on the go such as fair flowers fair plants

Personally, I don't think it will particularly affect people's buying behaviour from independant florists as people come to us for gifts/weddings/etc, more at the luxury end, infrequent special occasion purchases.

There are also some comments in a thread about the Gardener's World prog on uk grown flowers a couple of weeks back, poss worth a look.

Tregothnan have recently introduced an organic box, wonder if anyone has tried this and can offer any comment on how the foliage performed vs the chemically treated stuff we use normally.

A v interesting topic for your dissertation Chris, lots of pros and cons for you to argue, be interested to hear your conclusions. I didn't know you could do a degree in floristry, do you get to do practical work too?

Ooooh, this is a long post isn't it hehehehe, are you all still awake at the end of it?

Couple more things.......

- I have tried to get a green waste/cardboard collection, no one wants to know
- I would love to buy more british flowers - there must be people out there willing to supply, perhaps more at the specialist end of the market??? Carrington, you introduced me to Angus the paeony man thru an article you ran last year, please can we have some more like that?