The entire team behind Surprose believes that corporate social responsibility is not something special, but a basic requirement. It is in our DNA. So not just green fingers, but green thinking too!
We are constantly busy looking at what could be better, so are our growers and our flower arrangers. We are always looking at what could be better and what could be more sustainable. Here we briefly discuss what we are already doing about the sustainability of our roses. Is there anything you are not curious about? Please let us know!
Our source: the grower
We buy exclusively at the source, i.e. directly from the grower. We select these growers not only for the quality of their product, but also for the way in which they have arranged their business operations as sustainably as possible. For example, all our growers are certified when it comes to sustainable cultivation and dealing responsibly with people and the environment.
Growers have to meet conditions and they get certificates for that. All growers work according to the MPS standard, almost all of them have A status and have the SQ certificate. They use organic crop protection, instead of chemical pesticides. One of our growers even has Japanese quails scurrying around. They then eat weeds and pests! There are many more examples of sustainable growing from our growers. Want to read more about it? You can find it on the page: our grower.
Transport
Flowers generally spend too long in a plane or truck. They then spend a long time on the road and often go to all sorts of different places before ending up in the vase at the recipient's (i.e. you) home. Not only are the flowers already a week old by then, but a lot of fuel is wasted and with it a lot of emissions.
You actually want the roses to come from the grower, tied and shipped and that is exactly what we do! We keep the chain as short as possible, get the roses directly from the grower, bind the bouquets, and send them directly to you. You get fresh roses and CO2 emissions are kept to a minimum.
A normal route of a bunch of flowers:
- Grower
- Auction
- Wholesale
- Florist
- At your home
The route of our roses:
- Grower
- Bindery
- At home
We also consciously choose DHL as our standard carrier, because they work according to the ‘Go Green’ principle. In the big cities, small electric cars are already used as much as possible. Studies show that the home delivery of flowers puts less of a burden on our environment than if everyone goes to a florist separately to buy flowers. Because besides the fact that at the florist, the flowers have already had a longer journey before you buy them. Everyone also drives to the florist separately, which still costs every consumer fuel, that is not the case with us! Want more information on shipping? Read all about shipping our roses.
Our bindery
All roses are processed and packed by qualified personnel at our bindery located centrally in the Netherlands. We keep the use of water as limited as possible and collect excess water. The cooling cells at the bindery are largely powered by solar panels and modern LED lighting ensures less power consumption and less heat production.
Our packaging
Despite the luxurious look of our packaging, it is almost completely recyclable. In fact, part of our packaging material already consists of recycled material. We avoid plastic and wrap the roses in paper. All information is printed as much as possible on FSC-certified paper. Think of the envelope, the card and the care tips! Almost everything can be disposed of with the waste paper after use.
You could use the box for storage. We have seen many ideas for storage in the garage or attic with our boxes. You can collect the boxes with the paper waste, together with the rest of the packaging, to recycle the paper!
Our bouquets are kept moist during transport by a freshbag. So the roses are given a little water, rose food and a bacteria inhibitor during transport to ensure freshness. This freshbag cannot (yet) be disposed of in green waste; together with our supplier, we are striving for a compostable version in the future. Currently, half of the freshbag consists of compostable material, so we are well on our way and working towards a fully compostable freshbag.
The greeting card
Every order comes with a card. You cannot choose what the card looks like. Why we do it this way is very simple: the card, the shipping label and the order description are all printed on the same A4 paper. This way, our flower binders have all the information together on 1 paper and no extra paper is wasted! Of course, we make sure the card has a general print. A bouquet to suit every occasion. Whether you are sending roses for a funeral, a birthday or a wedding. The card will not be inappropriate!
With multiple choices of multiple cards, we have to move away from our all-in-one principle, where we will waste a lot of paper. We don't want that and therefore 1 card is available. However, you can choose whether you want text printed on it, or whether we print a QR code, allowing the recipient to watch a video you have uploaded yourself! So personalise the card yourself with text or a video message!
Long life roses
As an alternative to fresh roses, we also have long life roses. These are roses that are cut at the grower's when the rose bud and stem are the right sizes for this. Then the rose is treated to ensure that you can enjoy it not for a fortnight, but even for years! The exact process is secret, but what we can tell you about it is that all the liquid inside the rose and stem is replaced by a kind of glycerine. This keeps the rose standing still in time, so to speak.
So they are indeed real roses, but you can enjoy them for years, instead of 2 weeks. The roses need neither water nor flower food. All you have to do is carefully dust the roses every now and then!
So with the long-life roses, you basically only need to buy a bouquet once every few years to fill that vase on the table. That saves buying and sending flowers every few weeks!
Our Office
At our head office in Oldenzaal, we are housed in a modern building with automatically regulated heating, which means that the heating is therefore not left on unnecessarily high or long. The air conditioning is also controlled by a sensor, so it will never be on too long or unnecessarily, saving us a lot of energy. Just like at the bindery, we have many solar panels on the roof of the building, to make use of the energy that the sun brings us!
Do you have questions about our working methods or about our sustainability policy? Send an email to service@surprose.com. We would be happy to answer your questions and hear if you have any feedback for us.
