FSI members, including flower producers, traders, and retailers, gathered at IPM Essen for the General Assembly of 2023 on Thursday, January 26, to reflect on the Floriculture Sustainability Initiative's 2022 achievements and actions to take towards a 'responsible and transparent supply chain.' Besides the annual measurement of Responsibly Produced & Traded volumes, the members will start measuring and reporting on Carbon Footprinting and Living Wage. The year started off with a concrete action taken by the members: the FSI Code of Conduct was presented and adopted during the General Assembly. Members will embed this Code of Conduct in their policies and communicate it to their supply chain partners.
90% Responsibly Produced & Traded volumes
FSI is a market-driven initiative, aligning international floriculture stakeholders to collaboratively drive responsible production and trade. Reporting on volumes is part of the FSI members' commitment and is centered around the certification requirements of the FSI Basket of Standards. By linking production and trade, responsible production and trading volumes increase every year. More stringent requirements on Environmental Record-Keeping have raised the bar for sustainability in the sector and make the 90% for 2025 an ambitious target.
Responsible Conduct: Carbon Footprint & Living Wage
Building on FSI's Responsible Production & Trade scope, the FSI 2025 strategy also focuses on Responsible Conduct. Under this scope, FSI has set two main objectives to achieve by 2025. 1) reduction of the carbon footprint for selected products by 2025; 2) Reduction of the living wage gap of workers' farms by 2025.
To this end, the focus this year is for members to collect relevant data and analyze it using the various tools available. The role of FSI is to develop unified methodologies and stimulate the collaboration and also competition in the supply chain that is needed to reach the objectives together.
On the topic of Carbon Footprint, FSI stimulates environmental footprinting and is part of the technical secretariat working on the EU FloriPEFCR methodology: harmonized rules for calculating the footprint of plants and flowers. By focusing on a single methodology, we ensure comparability and verifiability of sustainability results and claims. As members start reporting on this topic, FSI aims to stimulate the sharing of carbon reductions sharing of best practices.
On the topic of Living Wages, FSI works closely together with the IDH team on the IDH Living Wage Road Map. A five-step approach towards calculating and finally reducing living wage gaps in supply chains. Building on experience in other sectors, companies in the floriculture sector have an opportunity to also get started and calculate living wage gaps using the Salary Matrix. During the Assembly, the first insights of a chain pilot were shared. More to follow soon!
Increased accountability & transparency
Record keeping and collecting data on important sustainability topics is an important step towards increased accountability & transparency. It enables FSI members to respond better to scrutiny that the sector faces: Blaming & shaming can be countered by knowing & showing when data is used for information and better storytelling. FSI will continue to support members on this path and help members with increased reporting requirements, such as the new legislation around sustainability reporting (i.e., CSRD).
Welcoming new members and Board representatives
FSI welcomed eight new members during this General Assembly. Five of them joined in 2022, and the year 2023 was kicked off with three new members. Welcome: Wagagai, Selecta-one, RHP, Floréac, VALHOR, Forest Produce, MM Flowers and Heemskerk Flowers. Erling Ølstad, CEO of MesterGronn, was re-elected as a board representative for the Retail Stakeholder Group. Lisa Staxäng, Board representative for CSOs on behalf of BSR-HERproject, passed over her duties to Joan Nyaki, Programme Coordinator at Women Win.
Call to action
FSI and its members invite more enthusiastic organizations involved in the floriculture supply chain to join this progressive, inclusive, and abundant journey to share sustainable solutions that support the strategic ambitions.
For more information:
Flower Sustainability Initiative
www.fsi2025.com