With the global cut-flower industry providing a bountiful supply of blooms to buy every day of the year, you may ask why anyone would bother to grow their own. To most people, a bouquet of flowers would appear to be a product of natural beauty, yet there are real concerns about environmental destruction, biodiversity loss and the impact of the industrial-scale floriculture industry on people and communities throughout the cut-flower supply chain.
The climate crisis means that we are all becoming much, Mike Berners-Lee looks at the carbon footprint of out-of-season, imported flowers and his conclusions are rather shocking. He says they are “some of the products with the largest carbon footprint per £1 generated at the tills. In other words, they are one of the most carbon-unfriendly ways of getting rid of your cash.”
