Environmental and sustainability policy

Where we start

A florist's stock is grown, mostly abroad, cut, chilled, flown or driven to an auction, driven to a wholesaler, driven to us, and then driven to you. There is no such thing as a flower with no footprint, and we will not call ourselves green, eco, sustainable or carbon-anything. What we can do is tell you what we do, what we are trying to do next, and what we have not yet managed. That is this policy.

Flowers

• British and seasonal first. When a flower is in season in this country we buy it here, from British growers through our wholesaler. A British-grown stem in June has travelled a few hundred miles by road; the same stem in January has flown from the southern hemisphere.
• Certified where we can. Through the auction we prefer flowers grown under an independent standard that checks water, chemical use and labour conditions. We cannot always see it on the bucket and we do not claim it where we cannot.
• Buy what we will sell. Waste flowers are the biggest avoidable cost, in money and in growing. We order to the week's orders and the shop's pattern, mark down stock as it ages rather than binning it, and send what is past selling to the compost.
• Everlasting flowers are a way to have colour without a weekly stem; we sell them plainly as artificial or dried, and we do not claim they are the greener choice, because that depends on what they are made of and how long they are kept.

Foam

Floral foam is a single-use plastic that breaks into fragments and does not biodegrade, so we use sustainable mechanics wherever we can: chicken wire, pin holders, moss, willow, reusable frames and water in the vessel. The one piece we still make on floral foam is funeral lettering: a name or a word spelt out in flowers.

Packaging

• Bouquets are wrapped in paper, tied with cotton or paper ribbon, and carried in a paper bag or a returnable box. We do not use cellophane.
• Letterbox flowers go in a cardboard box with a paper sleeve and a small water source; the box is recyclable in household collections.
• We reuse the wholesaler's crates and boxes where we can and return the ones the wholesaler takes back.
• Vases and vessels: we encourage customers to bring their own vase for an arrangement, and we lend a vase for a local delivery on request.
• Homeware arrives from our makers in their packaging; we ask them for less and for card over plastic, and we say so in our Supplier code of conduct.

The van

Our own van does the local rounds across Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. Deliveries are grouped by day and the route is planned to shorten the miles; the van is serviced on time and tyres kept at pressure, which is the cheapest fuel saving there is. When the van is replaced we will look at an electric one. Letterbox flowers nationwide go by DPD, tracked, on vehicles already making the journey.

Waste

• Green waste (stems, leaves, spent flowers, moss) is composted.
• Paper and card are recycled in the trade collection.
• Glass from broken vases and jars is recycled.
• Wire, plastic ties and mixed waste go to general waste; we keep them to a minimum by choosing paper and cotton first.
• Poppy Appeal stock is returned or handled as the Royal British Legion asks.

Water

Conditioning uses a great deal of clean water. Buckets are washed with a minimum of bleach and rinsed into the drain, not the ground; water from the flower buckets that is only a day old is used to water the shop's plants and the everlasting display is not watered at all. We do not have a water meter reading to publish yet.

Chemicals

Flower food is measured, not poured; bleach is used at the weakest strength that keeps buckets clean; leaf shine and spray adhesive are used only where an order needs them and in the ventilated workroom. Safety data sheets are kept for everything. No pesticides are used on the premises.

Energy

The shop's cold store and fridge run all year. The lights are LED, the cold store door is kept shut, and the heating is off in the workroom while the cold work is done.

Our website

The website runs on servers in London (Neon) and on a global hosting platform (Vercel). No advertising tag loads unless a visitor says yes to it, so a visit to our site loads far less than most shop websites do. That is a privacy choice first; it is a small energy saving too.

What we ask of suppliers

Our Supplier code of conduct asks suppliers to obey environmental law, to reduce packaging, to tell us about certification, and to answer our questions about where things are grown or made.

What we will do next

Each year the owner sets one or two things to improve and reports on them here.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question about this policy, or you think a claim we have made is not right, write to enquiries@flowerandglory.co.uk, telephone 01732 743419, or write to Flower & Glory, 12 Blacks Yard, Blighs Meadow, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1DS.

Changes to this policy

Changes to this policy are dated and logged on the page where it is published, so you can see what changed and when.