Towards 100 per cent sustainable

The production
Making the floriculture chain more sustainable starts with the production, Anthony Janssen of Plantion mediation states. He sees many growers struggle as they want to make the switch but are unable to do so due to finances. ‘The costs come before the benefits. In the end, it has to make financial sense. This is quite tricky because in retail, the average consumer does look at the price of a bouquet or plant. And organic is a bit more expensive.’ In the future, suppliers will have to be certified. Plantion will help them. Anthony: ‘We cherish our relationships with our suppliers, so we will help them where we can. We also encourage repeated keg usage and take back disposable kegs for recycling.’

The transport
There has traditionally been a sustainable element in mediation: much of the products go directly from grower to customer, with no one in between. This saves a lot of transport. Anthony: ‘Retail customers want large amounts of a particular product. For this, we used to visit several growers and bundle everything at the auction. But because of scaling up, this is no longer necessary.’ Plantion also limits transport in other ways: ‘We do this, for example, by bundling orders for green centres as much as possible. We also work with hubs where we place orders in one strategic location, so that each individual buyer does not have to drive to Plantion separately.’

The market
While the clock mainly serves retailers, mediation conducts business with large exporters and retail companies. Primarily the companies that are members of Tuinbranche Nederland (the Dutch floriculture organisation) have sustainability requirements, although in practice, there is still some work to be done. Anthony: ‘That has to do with the limited organic product range. No company has yet to say, “Not organic? Then I’ll just leave my shelves empty.” So we are on our way to 100 per cent sustainable, but that is only possible if there is sufficient supply.’