Willow Green Flower Farm is a business literally rooted in sustainability. Locally grown flowers for local weddings. British flowers used in British weddings lowers the carbon footprint of wedding flowers by over 10 times according to a 2017 study*.
Since 2017, Willow Green has gradually created a tiny farm with a rich habitat for wildlife out of what was originally an acre of grass in the Northamptonshire countryside. it is now filled with flowers, shrubs and trees, grown without chemicals on an organic farm, and teems with birds and insects. But there is more to sustainability than cutting out the imported flowers, Sustainability requires a business to find a balance between people, planet and profit and Willow Green is committed to working towards this with the long-term goal of having a positive impact on the planet.
Sustainable practices:
For Weddings, Willow Green first harvest as many of the flowers and foliage needed as possible from the farm itself and a nearby woodland garden. Then we look to other British flower suppliers before we ever think about sourcing from abroad. For any flowers and sundries bought in, we prioritise those with biodegradable packaging and flowers grown using solar energy and carbon neutral growing methods.
Plastic: Willow Green Flower Farm uses as little plastic as possible and recycles and reuses all possible materials. We continue to educate ourselves and build upon current practices to look at more practical alternatives, when designing and constructing floral arrangements. The floral industry is finally responding to the need for less single use plastic and there are exciting floral foam alternatives becoming available which we fully embrace.
Waste: all green and compostable material from the farm and from weddings is composted on the farm. Willow Green is introducing a three-tier composting system to produce a more efficient system. Landfill waste is currently minimised and everything possible is reused or recycled within the farm or through the council recycling scheme.
Mileage: Willow Green Flower Farm has recently been building relationships with our most local wedding venues with the goal of reducing business mileage. As the number of weddings grows, so does the overall mileage and our aim is to have a carbon neutral vehicle by 2030 as the business grows to fund this investment.
Willow Green Flower Farm’s field is run without the use of electricity and with water from a natural borehole, The workshop is run on 100% renewable energy and is located half underground so that it keeps naturally cool without air conditioning.
Education: Willow Green flower farm will continue to educate and encourage our couples to have a more sustainable wedding and will offer a larger range of subsidised hire accessories to reduce the number of items potentially ending up in landfill. We will do more to encourage return of glass and cardboard packaging for bouquets and buttonholes to Willow Green for reuse or recycling, and we will encourage them to consider alternatives to roses and gypsophila which have to be imported in every month except June and July.
Biodiversity: Over the last 5 years, Willow Green Flower Farm has planted over 300 willow, beech, birch, hornbeam, oak, and laurel trees in the form of windbreak hedging to protect the field habitat, plus many different varieties of shrub and permanent planting of perennials. We will continue to increase the diversity of our little flower farm
We will look at our suppliers and continue to seek out and prioritise the sustainable options. An example of this is our use of our local blacksmith to make all our metal arches and other structures
Carbon footprint:
Calculating the amount of carbon that a small business is producing is incredibly difficult and almost always requires some assumptions and estimates, but nevertheless Willow Green is dedicated to reducing our carbon footprint and has already started this by changing to 100% renewable electricity and LEDs in the workshop, and banking with a sustainable bank. The trees and shrubs and all the plants we have planted in the field are wonderful carbon capture elements of the business, but its difficult to say exactly how much they are capturing and it increases every year as they grow. The main producer of carbon is the Willow Green van, much loved and a crucial part of the business but not, it has to be admitted, good for the environment. At the end of it's life Willow Green are going to invest in a carbon neutral vehicle which should push us overall into a carbon positive business footprint, meanwhile, we try and keep mileage to a minimum by doing as many local weddings as can be achieved, and limiting all our weddings to a radius of approximately an hours drive.
* Rebecca Swinn, MSc dissertation Lancaster University 2017: Life Cycle Assessment to quantify and compare the carbon equivalent emissions from the cut flower supply chain