Florverde ensures the sustainable production of flowers and ornamentals, guaranteeing the well-being of people, communities, and the environment, offering a product of the highest quality, consolidating itself as the most solid standard worldwide for flowers and ornamentals.
LABOR & WELFARE
How does Florverde® Sustainable Flowers guarantee better labor / social conditions?
Workers benefit from FSF in a number of ways. First, it ensures that certified growers meet basic labor conditions as set by the International Labour Organization and national laws. This includes no discrimination, abuse, forced labor or child labor. It also sets a maximum of working hours per week, requires farms to submit evidence of freedom of association and promotes worker training and development. Moreover, 100% of FSF certified farms guarantee social security coverage for workers. Beyond compliance, the FSF standard also encourages growers to support projects that benefit local communities such as food security programs, daycare centers or housing subsidies.
How does Florverde® Sustainable Flowers protect women’s rights?
In many flower producing countries, women constitute the majority of workers and, as such, FSF strives to protect their rights in several ways. FSF prohibits growers from discriminating or harassing women due to their gender or pregnancy. Furthermore, FSF bans the use of pregnancy tests during recruitment. It also requires growers to offer separate dressing rooms for women. Although optional, many certified farms also sponsor on-site nursery schools.
Florverde® Sustainable Flowers allow child / forced labor?
The FSF standard prohibits farms from using forced labor or from employing workers under the age of 18.
Does Florverde® Sustainable Flowers allow and promote trade unions?
FSF requires growers to submit evidence that they give their workers the right to freedom of association and participation.
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
HOW DOES FLORVERDE SUSTAINABLE FLOWERS HELP TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE?
Through Florverde® Sustainable Flowers, use of renewable energy sources and conventional energy optimization is promoted via technological upgrading and the
implementation of good operational and maintenance practices. The developments of programs that reduce or offset GHG emissions are also encouraged like reforestation activities using native species
DOES FLORVERDE SUSTAINABLE FLOWERS ALLOW THE USE OF PESTICIDES AND FERTILIZERS?
The implementation of an Integrated Pest Management scheme (IPM) is promoted, and seeks to use various control techniques that, harmoniously combined, help maintain the incidents of phytosanitary problems at levels that do not cause economic damage in cultivated products. Thus, intervention with chemical pesticides is a tool within the IPM that must be used rationally and
appropriately, ideally using ones which are less toxic or favoring non-chemical alternatives for the management of phytosanitary risks faced by the crop.
The use of any type of input must be done responsibly, implementing the necessary controls and procedures in order to minimize risks to human health and the environment.
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HOW FLORVERDE PROMOTES LANDSCAPE AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION?
Florverde ensure that the floriculture business is conducted in permitted areas, while promoting the conservation of biodiversity, recovery of land that is impacted by the activity, and an improvement to the working environment within the companies by means of road management, green areas, and barriers of native plant species.
Addressing issues related to biodiversity will help farms reduce their operational risks and execute their projects more effectively, improving both the company’s image and the ability to access key resources for their business, such as land, water, capital, employees. and public goodwill (EBI, 2003).
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DOES FLORVERDE SUSTAINABLE FLOWERS PROMOTE THE EFFICIENT USE OF WATER?
Through Florverde® Sustainable Flowers, responsible and rational water use is encouraged in order to contribute to its long-term preservation and guarantee its availability; in turn, ensuring continued production of flowers and ornamentals by controlling the uptake and consumption of water, the use of rain water, the implementation of efficient irrigation techniques and systems, and water reuse, among other alternatives.
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DOES FLORVERDE SUSTAINABLE FLOWERS PROMOTES WASTE REDUCTION AND MANAGEMENT?
Proper waste management can prevent contamination and keep production units clean and tidy. Waste management must include the reduction of waste generation, separation according to the characteristics of the waste material, safe storage, reuse and recycling, as well as treatment and disposal in accordance with the current and applicable legal regulations.
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Get to know the campaign, BIODIVERSITY LIVES IN FLORVERDE, in which our certified companies show us how biodiversity is lived and lives on their farms
ECONOMY
Sustainable Value Management Approach
The relationship between companies, the environment and the social environment is becoming increasingly important for global economic development. This integration dynamic not only involves the different stakeholders of a company, but also impacts all the organizational activities of the value chain (Hoffman & Woody, 2013 in ECS.2016).
For this reason, it is essential to have a strategy that generates competitiveness and differentiation in the market by evaluating the balance between risk management and taking advantage of opportunities to maximize the added value for the business in an integral way (Hoffman, 2000 in ECS, 2016).
Some of these initiatives are certifications such as Florverde,
which is related to the sustainability strategy on two fronts:
Mechanism that seeks to reduce transaction costs
It is a mechanism that seeks to reduce transaction costs by building trust with stakeholders and reducing information asymmetries, especially with customers.
To the extent that customers recognize and trust the criteria and processes supported by the certification, they also prefer to consume products and services from recognized companies (Rosero, Spiller & Theuvsen, 2006; Henson, Masakure, & Cranfied, 2011).
Reduce resource dependency
It reduces the dependence on resources to the extent that compliance with operational and administrative requirements contributes to the continuous improvement of the company. As a consequence of the requirements demanded in the adoption of certification systems, it is possible to generate added value in order to become competitive and differentiated in the market.
VALUE STRATEGY
How does Florverde generate value for the company?
Risk minimization
The FSF certification contributes to minimizing the risks faced by a flower growing company. From labor-type risks, through the formalization and compliance with regulations, such as those of an environmental nature, from the implementation of processes to avoid the inappropriate use of agrochemicals or the use of waste.
From a social perspective, labor in the flower sector is one of the variables with the greatest impact on costs and productivity in cultivation. The labor issue, especially on the protection of workers’ conditions, has been of special emphasis in Florverde. Bad labor practices introduce a risk to the business, to the extent that they are evident to the interested parties. For this reason, one of the main value-generating activities in companies in the sector is the minimization of occupational risk.
Development of organizational capacities
One of the most important effects of certification is the standardization of processes. In order to comply with the certification requirements, it is necessary to “put the house in order and formalize the company”. This order results in a better control of the processes that allows generating efficiencies in them, improving the organizational capacities of the company.
Market access
Access to markets is another of the added values of certification, FSF allows an increase in the quality of flowers and ornamentals, and is a marketing element that helps reduce asymmetries with the market, improve the image and reputation of the certified company and finally, increase sales.
IMPACT, MONITORING &
EVALUATION SYSTEM
The Florverde Impact, Monitoring and Evaluation System was implemented since 1998, with the purpose of monitoring the performance of the farms in various aspects of high impact, and to demonstrate to internal and external clients the value of their social, environmental and economic management.
All companies interested in certification and certified companies must manage access to the platform prior to their certification audit processes.
Learn about the principles of S.I.M&E based on the ISEAL code of good practices:
There is an implemented I,M&E system that permits measuring the effectiveness of the standard in archieving it’s sustainabilitu objectives.
The results of the I,M&E system are integrated to improve the structure and operation of the standard in terms of content or other strategies
There are procedures in place to ensure mechanisms which guarantee the quality of performance monitoring data
Information outputs and impact evaluations are publicly availabe
Statement regarding results and impacts are based on the information generated throough monitoring and performance evaluations
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I, M&E system
I,M&E system facts:
- More than 124 companies registering information each month.
- More than 22 years of data on the environmental and social performance of flower grower companies.
- More than 1,3 Million of records to know the state, to stablish trends and to create strategies for the continuous improvement.
Know our metrics:
- Water: collection by sources (fresh water, ground water and rainfall), and use, per Ha.
- Active ingredient of chemical pesticides per Ha, per flower type.
- Residues per type (conventional and hazardous).
- Energy use per source.
- Carbon footprint for facilities and processes (direct and indirect emissions).
- Economic impact (NEW).
- Absenteeism.
- Accidentality and Severity.
