lumber through the Forest Stewardship Council and fish through
the Marine Stewardship Council. VeriFlora’s standards include a
quality component to ensure the flowers won’t wilt after a couple
of days in the vase. They also submitted their standard to the
American National Standards Institute (ANSI). With ANSI approval,
VeriFlora’s definition of sustainable flower production may become
the gold standard in the US and possibly around the world. So far,
SCS has certified more than 40 farms internationally, representing
more than 750 million stems per year.
VeriFlora is also set apart from other eco labels because it requires
growers to either be organic, or to develop a plan to transition to
organic production. But Alexander Winslow, SCS’s communications
director, doesn’t think organic is enough. “Why be satisfied with
organic?” he says. “The reality is that organic only goes so far. It
doesn’t address energy efficiency. It doesn’t address worker health or
community benefits. We are absolutely convinced that sustainability
is a stronger vehicle for achieving environmental and social good.
The ultimate goal is to move toward organic farming practices, but
that only goes so far in addressing the environmental impact of the
product from a life cycle perspective.”
VeriFlora is also making an effort to certify farms of all sizes
throughout North America. That goal is particularly important to Tom
Leckman, president and CEO of Canada’s largest floral distributor,
Sierra Flower Trading. “We wanted to have a label that involved
the local growers,” he says. “We felt there was a little too much
finger-pointing at Latin America. It’s not just the Colombians who
sometimes have an issue with labor laws.” Now, about 30 percent
of the flowers Sierra sells are certified through VeriFlora. But before
VeriFlora came on the scene, Sierra also had to wade through an
alphabet soup of floral certifications. The company initially only
The dilemma that Chiriboga and growers like him
face is that they are sincere about their desire to
transition to more sustainable practices, but they’re
not sure how to get the message out to consumers
in the faraway countries that import their flowers.
76 | february-march 2008