Sustainability report - Our 2020
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Our 2020
sustainability
report
We’re reducing the We’re proud to
impact of our flowers say we have
“Flowers. They make us smile. They light up a room. They make us
100%
feel more connected. But, like most things, they also leave an impact
on the planet. And because we all have a responsibility to clean up
the footprints we leave behind, we’re working really hard to find ways
that’ll let us all enjoy flowers without leaving a big impact behind.
recyclable letterbox
packaging
I’m proud to say we’ve already made big progress. Over the last
0
year, we’ve started offsetting our carbon emissions, made big steps
in the recyclability of our packaging (our letterbox packaging is now
100% recyclable!) and maintained zero waste to landfill. And we’re
continuing to make improvements to help tip the scales. Over the
waste to landfill
following pages you can find out more about what we’re already
2.5kg
doing and what we’re working on next.”
CO2e offset per
Co-Founder
bouquet from
September 2020
We’re offsetting our
carbon emissions
Over the past 6 months we’ve worked really hard to map our emissions across our
supply chain. We thought it was important not only to include emissions from our
direct operations (known as Scope 1 & 2*) but from our full upstream supply chain
(known as Scope 3*). This means we’ve included all the carbon produced from our
office, growing our flowers, transporting them, fulfilling orders in our warehouse and
delivering to our customers. And it means that 2.5kg of CO2e is emitted to get every
bouquet to a lovely customer, which is roughly the same as three bags of Italian pasta**.
=
What we’re doing next
Right now, we’re calculating ways we can reduce the CO2e every bouquet
1 bouquet 3 bags of produces even more. Our aim is to cut this back to 2.3kg of CO2e in 2021.
Italian pasta
Keep reading to find out about how we’re taking responsibility across our supply chain.
To help minimise the impact we create, from September 2020 we’re offsetting
our carbon emissions by supporting projects around the world that improve lives
* Source: Scope definitions as per the Greenhouse Gas Protocol 2020
and cut carbon. These include two Gold Standard certified projects in Kenya -
the Burn Clean Cookstoves project and Aqua Clara Safe Water project. **Source: Carbon Catalogue, Global Publicly Disclosed Product Carbon Footprints (2020)
Our flowers
We know that growing flowers to cut can leave an
impact on the world we live in. That’s why we take
responsible sourcing, growing and transport seriously.
And we only work with suppliers who do too.
We source our Where do our flowers come from?
flowers carefully
7%
We work with ethical flower farms around the world.* Almost 60% of
our flowers are grown in Europe and another 34% in Kenya. We take
this diverse approach so that we can - as far as possible - avoid using
heated greenhouses. When we can’t grow in Europe without these, it
makes sense to grow in Kenya because - even with airfreight - the total
carbon footprint of growing flowers in a warm climate is six times less**
34%
than growing flowers out of season in hothouses that are closer to our 59%
warehouses. Since learning this, we’ve become the first people to grow
all-year favourites - like snapdragons - in Kenya to lessen our footprint.
When we can grow flowers in the UK, we pick flowers naturally
in season close to our warehouse to minimise unnecessary carbon
emissions from travel. In spring and summer our UK grown flowers are
picked less than 20 miles away from our warehouse!
On the rare occasion we can’t source our flowers from natural Europe Kenya Other
environments in Europe or Kenya, we do use heated greenhouses.
After running a detailed audit this year, we know that only 18% of our
*Colombia, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Netherlands,
flowers are grown this way. And it’s a big priority for us in 2021 to
Panama, Turkey, South Africa, Spain, UK, USA.
reduce this percentage further.
**Source: Dr Adrian Williams, Cranfield University Comparative Study of Cut Roses
for the British Flower Market Produced in Kenya and the Netherlands (2007)
We grow our flowers responsibly
With careful pest control Mindful water systems Biodiversity projects
Like all living things, flowers need water to grow. But our farmers Our flower farms in Kenya have special
We work with farmers who can grow our flowers in natural
are careful to minimise how much they use. That’s why they use an projects in place to help protect forests
conditions, and use chemical pesticides as a last resort.
innovative growing system (known in the industry as a ‘hydroponic’ and wetlands, while beehives and bat
They pride themselves on their good agricultural practices
system). This means they plant our flowers in trays of water instead boxes welcome local wildlife. Sometimes
and use what’s known as ‘integrated pest management
of soil. Sounds strange, right? But it uses 30% less water as nothing they spot cheeky leopards sleeping
systems’, which greatly reduce any risks to our people and
drains away into the ground and rainwater is harvested into the amongst our carnations!
planet. These systems work by finding ways to prevent
pests from making a happy home in our crops instead system. Clever stuff.
of letting them settle, minimising the need for chemical
sprays. And it helps to reduce wastage too. Thanks to this smart technique, every bouquet uses approximately
150 litres of water by the time it reaches you. This might sound a
Our farmers use botanicals to control pests wherever lot, but it’s the same as a cup of coffee* or two bananas**.
possible and only use pesticides as a targeted and very last
resort. They also carefully monitor their total pesticide
usage and are audited on how much they do use.
= or
*Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Friends of the Earth
Report Documents Land & Water Footprints of Everyday Products
1 cup of coffee 2 bananas
**Source: Water Footprint Network, Product Gallery 1 bouquet
We transport our
flowers mindfully
For deliveries across all of our markets, where we can, we work with
couriers and postal services who offset their carbon emissions by doing
things like financing renewable energy production projects.
We’re also working with green couriers, who deliver our flowers on
push bikes or in electric vans. From January-June 2020 these green
couriers travelled 45,643km (that’s like flying from Aberdeen to
Sydney. Then back to Aberdeen. Then to Bali!), saving 11,956kg of
CO2 compared to if they’d been delivered by a diesel van.
This saved greenhouse gases equivalent to
3,120,969
mobile phones charged
or
2,404
gallons of petrol
What we’re doing next
Reducing our
air miles
We’re aiming to launch a range of bouquets for the UK
made completely of seasonal flowers grown on British
farms near our warehouse. To make sure we don’t heat
any greenhouses to do this, we’ll only use flowers that
What we’re doing next
Increasing
are in season in Britain and happy to grow in our natural
climate. So watch this space.
our green
courier targets
In 2021, we’re aiming for at least 30% of our
London deliveries to be sent by push bike.
Our packaging and waste
We’re committed to making our packaging 100%
recyclable and maintaining zero waste to landfill to make
our process as sustainable as possible.
We’re responsible
with what we produce
We hate waste. So we make sure our warehouses send zero
waste to landfill. In fact, we’ve sent nothing to the landfill for
the last 5 years! Wondering how?
We’re really careful with forecasting We sell lovely leftovers to a local florist We always recycle
We have very advanced systems to help us measure demand If we still have any leftovers, then we work with a florist local Cardboard, plastic and wood we can no
accurately. As a young, tech-savvy company, we’ve always to our warehouse who takes them to the flower market and longer use is sent off for a new lease of life.
used data and predictive analytics to continuously improve gives them new homes. And because we send our flowers to
our forecast accuracy. This means we only grow what our customers in-bud, they’re still in great condition on the rare We incinerate waste
customers will want to buy. But like any forecast, we can’t occasion that we do need to re-sell them to our local florist. to make energy
always get it 100% right (although we do always manage
So even the things we can’t
95% or more). On the odd occasion we do have extra We compost green waste for recycle don’t go to waste.
flowers left over, we have the following systems in place to other companies to use
make sure they don’t go to waste.
So any damaged flowers, excess foliage, leaves or leftover
We hold special eco sales stem ends don’t go to waste. And the flower farms we use
also compost their green waste. So there’s no flower waste
When we can see we might have too many flowers, we offer anywhere in our supply chain.
them to loyal customers at an amazing price. So they can
snap up these beautiful flowers at the last-minute and we
prevent them from going to waste. Win win!It makes me feel
great to say that our Our letterbox packaging is now 100%
recyclable and free of single-use plastics
letterbox packing is
now 100% recyclable.
This is Kerry. She heads up our supply chain. She’s been working Making all these changes means that by the end of this year
really hard to find ways to make our letterbox packaging (which we’ll save 60,784kg of plastic and polyester from going to
makes up 90% of our overall deliveries) 100% recyclable while landfill. That’s about the same weight as 929 fridges.
still keeping our flowers safe on their travels. Over the last 18
60,784kg
months, she’s helped us make huge, huge progress.
Thanks to all her hard work, we now use...
Kraft paper wraps (goodbye cellophane)
Paper flower food sachets (goodbye plastic)
Recyclable plastic plant bags
=
Recycled paper
Ribbons made from recycled bottles
Recyclable flower nets
Vegetable inks
Even the offer cards we pop in magazines and
929 fridges
other companies’ boxes are made from recycled
paper and vegetable inks!How you can help
Pop everything in the right bins Avoid sending your flowers to landfill
Sounds simple but it helps massively! So here’s everything you need to know. When flowers are thrown away in the normal bin, they
end up in landfill. As they break down there, they
produce methane, which is a harmful greenhouse gas.
Paper and cardboard bins Compost bin
But the good news is there’s lots you can do to stop
Cardboard boxes, arranging guides, Flowers, leaves, stems, plants your flowers ending up here.
post cards, offer cards, paper wraps,
flower-food wrappers, gift cards
Fabric recycling bank Dry them and keep in a
(or keep and reuse!) vase all-year round
Plastic bin
Ribbons
Flower nets, plastic plant bags Press them to pop in a
Made from widely recyclable HDPE, Normal bin photo frame or album
these are accepted at local plastic bag
Water bags for hand-tied bouquets,
recycling points and by some councils Pop them in your compost
bubble wrap around vases
in your kerbside recycling or garden-waste binWhat we’re doing next Making our hand-tied flowers and plant packaging 100% recyclable too We use bubble wrap for our vases and ceramic planters to help keep them safe on their travels and sometimes our hand-tied bouquets are sent with water bags to keep them fresh when it’s hot. But we’re looking into eco-alternatives - like cardboard holders and recyclable water bags - to do the job instead. Our aim is to make all our packaging 100% recyclable by the end of 2021.
Our people What’s just as important as our planet? All the lovely people on it. Keep reading to find out how we’ve been supporting our team, suppliers and communities.
We’ve helped vulnerable
people through the pandemic
In the UK In Germany
From March-August 2020 we donated £214,717 to From April-June we donated €12,348 to Nebenan
the National Emergencies Trust Coronavirus Appeal Stiftung (by donating 1€ every time someone
(by donating 15% of profits every time someone bought our Clara bouquet). This community-led
bought Our Florist’s Pick). The trust has been foundation works to strengthen and create vibrant
distributing this money to local initiatives to help neighbourhoods across the country.
vulnerable people. Think things like care packages to
families in Leeds who’d been relying on school meals
to feed the kids. If you’d like to know more about
the other places the money has gone to help, visit
In France
bloomandwild.com/national-emergencies-trust. From April-June we donated €875 to Fondation de
France (by donating 1€ of the sales from three of our
We also gave frontline workers 40% off our flowers French tulip bouquets). This amazing cause provides aid
to help them stay connected to the people they love for vulnerable people in times of unpredictable crises.
and miss, or to treat themselves to a little pick-me-up
while times were tough. 183,349 super hard-working
people used this code and we gave over £2.5 million
worth of discounts to them.We’re supporting our
suppliers through
challenging times
As an online florist, we were very fortunate to maintain a strong demand
from our customers throughout the pandemic. This wasn’t the case for
everyone, so we increased our orders with suppliers and created new
bouquets to support our French and Kenyan farms who were left with
a sudden excess of flower varieties like lily of the valley and tulips.
This prevented over 4 million stems from going to waste.
We’ve prevented over 4 million
stems from going to waste!We work with ethical suppliers
We take caring about our staff seriously, which includes everyone at our flower farms and
warehouses. That’s why we only work with partners who have strong ethical practices in
place wherever they are in the world. Our biggest flower farms in a developing country are
those in Kenya, and across all these sites our partners offer...
Support for community Free transport to and from work
care projects, like
So salaries aren’t spent
Water aid for the Maasai community on work expenses
Salary support for teachers Ethical-awareness programmes
School meals Every supervisor on the farm has
free Partner Africa ETI training
Extra support for
women in work Training & development schemes
Generous holiday allowance
Because everyone needs access to
1 year of maternity leave, with Everyone gets 30 days of things that help them learn and grow
the first 3 months paid full annual leave and access to
worker-welfare committees
New mums being able to leave Health-awareness training
early for 6 months
To make sure everyone is safe,
Subsidised food and
healthy and happy at work
Gender committees to support canteen facilities for all workers
with and raise issues
To help fuel everyone’s dayWe’re creating a greener head office Although our team has been working from home during the pandemic, our office space is open for very small numbers of people who need it. And this year we’ve made lots of little swaps to make our ‘home’ kinder to the planet. From eco-friendly cleaning products, kitchen roll, toilet paper and sanitary products to recycled pens, post-its, recycling our coffee grounds and more.
We’re improving our
diversity and inclusion
Like many people, the Black Lives Matter movement made us realise
we could do better. So we’ve made commitments to our customers and
staff to improve diversity in our marketing and team. Earlier in 2020,
we started featuring more Black and NBPoC models in our marketing,
we’ve updated our marketing and PR media list to include a more diverse
mix of publishers and we’ve updated our influencer base for fair racial
and LGBTQ+ representation, too. We also chose to support the Steven
Lawrence Charitable Trust. This South London Trust was founded to
tackle inequality in all forms. It’s dedicated to transforming the life
chances of young people and improving the world in which they live to
nurture their talent. And as we’re a South London based business, this What we’re doing next
Continuing to
feels very close to our hearts.
educate ourselves
Internally, our People team have worked hard to strengthen our internal
policy to better protect our team from any form of discrimination,
working with specialists to help educate our team about unconscious
biases (and how to question them) and reviewing our hiring process to look We’ve committed to ongoing training for all our new starters.
for proactive ways to attract and welcome a diverse mix of employees. This means that as our team grows we will continuously educate
ourselves on all topics related to diversity and inclusion. And we’ll be
holding our first diversity survey so that we can report internally on
diversity in our team and measure our progress year on year.That’s all for now
But we promise to keep being open and honest about our
progress in the things we’re still working on!
Got a question? Or think we can
do better in a certain area?
We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Feel free to email us at sustainability@bloomandwild.comYou can also read
