Sustainability – and the crucial role the floristry industry playsYvette

Sustainability is relevant in all of our daily lives – both in a local sense, and globally. It is important to make educated decisions and choices for how you create and maintain sustainable practices within your floristry business and also at home.

When it comes to our philosophies on sustainability within the floristry industry – it’s pretty clear. We must make it our mission to source local botanical materials, as well as choosing sundry materials that have a low environmental impact.  At Bloom College we make sure we always consider sustainability when planning and holding our floristry courses and workshops.

Not sure how sustainability relates to the floristry industry? Let’s take a closer look using specific examples. Sustainability is divided into Environmental, Social, and Economic subcategories, and below we list examples relevant to floristry.

Environmental:

• Transportation
• Pesticides
• Water usage – the growing process, storage and handling
• Land usage for growing of botanicals
• Cool rooms and refrigerated transport
• Electricity usage rates for running cool rooms, and where that electricity is generated

Social:

• Human rights for workers in developing nations
• Working conditions for workers in developing nations
• Social responsibilities of consumers
• Livability concerns for some communities reliant on this industry
• Health equity for those involved in the growing of botanicals

Economic:

• Cost effective energy bills
• Competitive, but profitable supply chains

Here at Bloom College we go the extra mile to ensure we use sustainable practices in all of our floristry workshops and courses – to see and example of what we mean, check out our Profiling Our Pots! Blog post (which also has handy information on a You Tube channel that you MUST take a look at!).

Remember, floristry is a beautiful industry, so let’s make sure we keep it beautiful from seed to bloom!