Thanks to research carried out in 2017 by Rebecca Swin (more on this below) there is absolutely no doubt that British grown flowers have a considerably lower carbon footprint than imported ones. Our flower consumption is such that our weekly bunch of flowers - from the supermarket or florist - could be accommodated by the remaining British flower growers, but the huge wedding and commercial use could not. As I wrote in my last blog, 90% of flowers sold in the UK are imported.And small scale growers like me only offer a minuscule alternative.
Perhaps tastes will change as a result of the environmental crisis and economic challenges post Covid 19, only time will tell, but there if you want to be ‘eco’ there are a growing number of growers and florist like me who are looking to British flowers for a green solution. When looking for ‘eco florists’ I would encourage you to consider the research mentioned in this blog. Eco is more than brown paper wrap. If you lean into seasonal, embrace variation in availability and the fluctuations of choice then it is possible to have the luxury of abundant flowers without a massive carbon footprint.
We are getting better at understanding the carbon footprint of the products we consume and (I hope that) consumers are doing cost/impact/use analysis before buying new products and one-use-plastic. Incidentally we just replaced our VERY OLD fridge with a relatively expensive A*** one and our smart meter is saying our daily cost of energy has dropped by around 80p a day! Doesn’t sound much but that’s a reduction of one third of our energy use! Anyway, I digress… Cut flowers are a beautiful ‘natural’ product and it’s hard to imagine them racking up a carbon footprint that is equal to a flight from London to Paris. But many do! Research by Rebecca Swin (done at the University of Lancaster in 2017) calculated the carbon footprint of dutch, Kenyan and British bouquets:
A Dutch and Kenyan bouquet that included 5 roses, 3 lilies and 3 gypsophila equalled 31.132kg/CO2 (Kenya) and 32.252Kg/CO2 (Dutch).
An equivalent bouquet using British alternatives (I’m assuming that this is because we don’t grow commercial roses in this country anymore) with 5 snapdragon, 3 lilies and 3 alstroemeria totted up 3.287Kg/CO2. That’s 10% of the carbon emissions!
A locally grown bouquet using 15 stems of outdoor grown flowers had a carbon footprint of 1.71kg/CO2.
This information is available online for you to read in full. Angela Coulton (from florist Petal and Twig in Lancashire) has written a summary of Rebecca’s work and both documents are available to read here.
From this data one can start to extrapolate what the carbon footprint of large wedding displays and commercial dinner party table decorations look like! I wonder if they actually would equal a flight around the world. One day I will do those sums…but today’s Weddings do pose an environmental problem, and were we looking at one luxury bouquet for one person, the carbon footprint wouldn’t be that extreme and it is a ‘one off’ occasion. But people want their special day to be special and go ‘all out’ on floral decoration. Floral walls. Hanging installations. And at what cost? Huge financial cost, certainly, but also knocking up a massive carbon footprint too.
For me this ‘weight’ isn’t just a bit unpleasant but part of the problem we have in turning the environmental crisis around. And this isn’t a blame game, because I don’t believe that people understand this ‘weight’ and its impact and that there are alternatives. Admittedly these alternatives require a different mindset that is about embracing seasonality and accepting that you can’t precisely choose your flowers from a long menu, because the world is no longer at your fingertips. But British seasonal flowers are.
Last year I was able to offer flowers from February (Valentine’s Day) to December (Christmas bouquets) using only British flowers. But I can’t just walk into the wholesaler and buy these flowers. I can only do this because I have developed my own network of growers and small wholesalers (little companies coordinating the sale of flowers from local farms to florists by post) and I coordinate deliveries from different parts of the country which takes considerable time and effort.
These road miles are considered in order to minimise their overall carbon footprint too. At Christmas I had deliveries from Cornwall, Lincolnshire and Cheshire. In February I had deliveries from three locations in Cornwall and two from Lincolnshire. And of course it does mean that my Valentine’s Day bouquets don’t have red roses in them. And at Christmas I have lilies, alstroemerias and chrysanthemums, tulips too, but there isn’t a massive choice. But if we lean into seasonal, we embrace the variation in availability and the fluctuation of choice, then we can have the luxury of abundant flowers without a massive carbon footprint.
