Sustainability Policy
We at the Berlin Flower School are constantly searching for new sustainable techniques to create floral designs. It is our policy to constantly monitor new developments and teach new sustainable techniques to the new generation of florists.
The floral industry is one of the most unsustainable industries in the world, even though we are working so closely with nature's products like flowers, foliage, plants, and fruits, etc. Our carbon footprint is disastrous.
"For an industry that seeks to celebrate nature, we are actually adding to environmental problems when using this product. Disposal issues have stemmed directly from a lack of user information about the product on packaging and at the point of sale."
(Source:Rita Feldmann, Founder, Sustainable Floristry Network www.sustainablefloristry.org )
We at the Berlin Flower School are very aware of two major negative impacts. Flower farming with no European standard and the use of floral foam (which is a plastic microbeads based foam) that over 72% of florists still use worldwide and drain into water or soil. The foam itself does not biodegrade even after 40 years and dissolved into microplastics.
"The study by RMIT researchers demonstrated that the floral foam microplastics also release chemicals that are more toxic than those found in other plastic families into the surrounding water and affect aquatic invertebrates."
(Source: AZO Clean Tech, https://www.rmit.edu.au/)
In our classes, we try to use mainly seasonal and regional grown flowers and we teach old techniques like the pin frog technique, also known as "Kenzan", chickenwire technique, biodegradable wool, moos, and hairpin frogs to reduce our carbon print massively.
Our mission is to educate a new generation of florists to value nature's products and to move forward from an unsustainable industry to a more sustainable one. By 2022 we only want to teach sustainable techniques.
Standard May 2020
Founder
Julia Gauld-Ritterspach
References:
Flower Magazin November 27, 2019
https://flowersmagazine.com.au/2019/11/27/floral-foam/
Sustainable Floristry Org
AZO Clean Tech
https://www.azocleantech.com/news.aspx?newsID=26846
Agra Wool International
https://www.agra-wool.nl/en/products-en/natural-floral-foam-en.html