The environment
As a business we are committed to reducing our impact on the environment and regularly review and update our farming and growing methods and our trading activities with a view to this. We have involved FWAG, the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, in advising us on conservation activities on both our sites and we were also the first UK grower of ornamental crops to be awarded certification against the LEAF Marque Standard (Linking the Environment and Farming).

We are in the process of creating a conservation area at our Spalding site to encourage wildlife and provide wild flowers for insects.

In Cornwall, we have planted over 5,000 trees at Varfell and have been involved on a project with the Environment Agency, creating a natural reed bed to filter the runoff water from the farm.

UK grown
We already grow a large proportion of the flowers that we sell in the UK and are continually exploring ways to grow new crops at home, and to extend the UK growing seasons. All this helps to cut our carbon emissions from transporting flowers longer distances and create a more sustainable future.

Saving energy
We are constantly seeking new ways to improve our business practices aiming to reduce energy usage and therefore reduce our carbon footprint. We have introduced energy-awareness training for our staff and have also reduced our air travel. We have even thought of the little things, from turning off lights, to shutting down computers and turning off the monitors properly at the end of the day – it all counts!

We are also investigating the feasibility of producing our own energy through the use of anaerobic digestion. By harnessing the methane from our organic waste as it composts down and turning it into electricity. By preventing methane from venting freely into the atmosphere, these systems can help reduce emissions that contribute to climate change. 

Using less water
We have created lagoons across our farms to collect rain water, which we
then use to grow and irrigate our crops. We are investigating further possibilities to harvest rain water and to recycle water that we use in the growing process.

Reducing peat usage
80% of our tulips are grown on water beds (using water sourced from our lagoons!) this has meant we have reduced our peat usage considerably. We are always looking at trialing new growing substrates to see if we can reduce this further and have been an active participant in industry trials to look at alternative growing substrates. We also reuse our peat where possible by composting it for at least six months and then reusing it in our lily growing programme.

Recycling
We recycle as much as possible everything from washing and re-using plastic growing trays, to recycling cardboard and plastic waste to composting green waste to recycling waste paper in the office.

Carbon Foot Printing
We are involved in an industry project to look at each crop that we grow and to calculate the carbon foot print of that crop aiming to then actively look at ways in which we can reduce our carbon footprint going forward, where possible.