“From you, men,” said the little prince, “grow five thousand roses in the same garden … and they don’t find what they’re looking for…”
More than 200 million roses are grown each year specifically for Valentine‘s Day.
The problem is that their spontaneous flowering period would be from mid-spring until autumn.
Thus, to meet the commercial needs of this day, they are grown intensively in greenhouses (with great waste of water and the use of various chemicals).
Most of these roses, in addition, come fromAfrica or South America.
In addition to the massive CO2 emissions to refrigerate the flowers and transport them throughout Europe and North America by airplanes and refrigerated trucks, more and more areas of rainforest are being bulldozed to make way for rose plantations.
Finally, cheap labor is not protected in any way, neither from the point of view of social rights nor from the point of view of health.
Worldwide, an average rose will be sold for €5 on Valentine’s Day.
Considering the totally inadequate wages, the laborers, and especially the laborers (because most of them are women), would take about two weeks to be able to afford a flower that they themselves picked.
It is clear that growing these roses is in no way environmentally sustainable, not to mention that they are literally thrown away after a few days.
We invite, therefore, a more conscious choice for Valentine’s Day gifts:
- Favor seasonal flowers such as cyclamens and camellias
- Choose an original, but still gorgeous, bouquet of vegetables
- directly plant a tree like those in our
Fumagalli Forest
in collaboration with
Treedom
Contact us HERE to find out how to be part of our project or purchase the
Valentine’s Box
on our e-commerce website.
