Progress of the new approach to digital environmental registration and certification

In September, Royal FloraHolland announced a new approach to encourage and provide guidance to growers in relation to commencing digital environmental registration. Over the past three months, the Sustainable Development and Quality team has been hard at work on this approach, in close collaboration with the various FPCs (FloraHolland Product Committees). We would like to take you through our progress so far.

A large part of our suppliers have already commenced digital environmental registration. Currently, approximately 57% of Royal FloraHolland suppliers have carried out environmental registration, with 44% of suppliers holding an environmental certificate. Royal FloraHolland also wishes to encourage remaining growers to get started. We are talking here about approximately 1,700 growers, of whom about two-thirds are based in the Netherlands, with the rest abroad.

In the meantime, we have been discussing how best to approach these growers with 23 of the 27 FPCs:

• All growers have already got started in two of these FPCs, Gerbera and Kalanchoe, so 100% of their growers have carried out digital environmental registration and environmental certification.
• In ten FPC's, less than six growers haven't started yet. We will be contacting these growers to ask them to participate, so that hopefully these FPCs will also reach the 100% figure soon.
• Growers of seasonal flowers, bulb flowers and tulips without digital environmental registration are also being invited to an online information meeting on Wednesday, 8 December at 3:00 pm. They have also received an invitation for a personal visit from our sustainability expert Danielle van Heijningen. She will be available to answer any questions you have, as well as provide you with tips and help you get started with digital environmental registration and environmental certification.
• With FPC Tree nursery Products, FPC Flowering Plants, FPC Cut Anthurium and FPC Freesia, letters are being sent from the respective FPC's to their members, information meetings are being organised, and product managers and auctioneers are engaged in drawing attention to this subject.
• In the coming weeks, the remaining FPCs will continue to discuss a plan to approach those growers without digital environmental registration.
• On a country-by-country basis, we are also looking at our growers abroad and how we can encourage them to make a start with digital environmental registration. Most of our growers are located in Kenya, Germany, Israel, Belgium, Italy and Spain, and depending on the local situation, information brochures are being translated, companies are being visited and telephone calls are being made to raise awareness of digital environmental registration and environmental certification.

Our common goal is to make sure our fantastic industry remains future-proof. This involves being transparent to the market about the production process of our flowers and plants, so that we can show everyone how our products are grown, and to serve the growing market for certified products. The best way available to do this is with digital environmental registration and environmental certification. That's why we want to encourage and help as many growers as possible to get started with digital environmental registration and to subsequently obtain an environmental certificate.

The Dutch Association of Wholesalers in Floricultural Products (VGB) and large trading companies are helping their buyers to increase the proportion of trade coming from companies with environmental registration and certification? Using the Sustainable Sourcing Scan, they closely monitor the percentage of certified purchasing - after all, this is an important issue for more and more of their customers. For example, Fleurop, with hundreds of affiliated florists in the Netherlands, requires all their shops to be certified and to purchase a large proportion of their flowers from growers with an environmental certificate.