The Sustainable Garden Centre - The Garden Centre of the Future?

By John Stanley

The world is going green. Not only are politicians such as Arnold Schwarzenegger in California introducing greener strategies, but retailers are doing the same.

The trend started with the food industry and has included taxes on plastic bags (in Ireland), the development of Fair Trade Products (especially coffee) and introduction of food miles, especially in the UK farmers markets. All of these initiatives are being driven by a consumer who is starting to question whether we can sustain the present way we do things and preserve the plant for future generations.

What started as a movement that seemed out the realm of individual consumers is now starting to become consumer focused. Consumers are starting to question whether it is in their interest to purchase products made in China or shipped great distances across the world; globalisation is a fact of life, but at the same time it is creating a backlash.

How will this affect the Future Garden Centre?

The sustainable garden centre stems from a trend for sustainable gardens. Generation X, especially, is starting to question how they garden and how it affects the environment.

The sustainable gardeners question what chemicals they are putting on their garden, are they enhancing local wildlife habitats, are they helping to conserve water, recycle waste and generally be a positive ‘green’ citizen and helping to conserve the planet. I feel this movement is only just starting, but garden personalities such as Josh Byrne in Australia have just released a book on sustainable gardening as the way forward titled ‘The Green Gardener’. The sustainable garden centre trend is not coming, at this stage, from one specific region of the world. I’m seeing ideas appearing around the world!

Plants from Your Region

In the UK, consumers are leaning towards supporting local growers rather than the trend of the last few years where plants have travelled across large distances in ‘semi’ containers. As a result, one label company is providing plant labels that indicate where the plant has been grown and encouraging consumers to buy local plants.

Labels promote Cheshire Grown, Somerset Grown, and Devon Grown with the aim of getting consumers to identify the fact that the plant was grown by a nurseryman in their country.

This trend has also occurred with plant containers. “Yorkshire Containers” is a UK company that promotes the fact that their containers are made in the UK for UK conditions by local craftsmen.

Accredited Sustainable Garden Centres

In Australia, we have got to the stage where we have developed an accreditation scheme for sustainable garden centres. Accreditation of garden centres is nothing new. Many countries have an accreditation scheme that checks and monitors garden centres to ensure that they meet minimum standards of hygiene and environmental standards. Sustainable accreditation takes this one step further and ensures the garden centre is meeting standards on preserving and enhancing the local environment.

Banning the Plastic Bag

IKEA, the Swedish Furniture stores are in the process of eliminating the plastic bag and replacing it with a biodegradable bag. Tesco’s, the UK and Californian supermarket group are also introducing “green bags”. Sustainable garden centres should be leaders in the banning of plastic bags. As mentioned already, governments around the world are looking at bag taxes to reduce plastic bag consumption. The green bag should be a “must” in the future garden centre.

Sainsbury’s in the UK have introduced degradable packaging on their organic vegetable and fruit range. Once you’ve unpacked your produce, you simply put the packaging the compost bin to let it rot.

It is suggested that in Britain, compost bins should be provided to every home as government policy. Whatever the solution, this will reignite the debate on degradable containers, something I was involved with thirty years ago, but perhaps their time has come.

Pot Recycling

Leading New Zealand Garden Centres have had pot recycling programmes for a number of years. Consumers have been encouraged to bring back their plastic containers and dump them in recycle bins which are located in the centres parking lot.

Promote the Local Grower

Portugal may not be known for its horticultural retail excellence, but I have recently been working with a client in that country and one thing that impressed me was in the supermarkets. They promote local growers using large signs above the product. The aim is to encourage consumers to purchase local product. A great concept and something we should encourage plant growers to get involved with.

John Stanley is a conference speaker and retail consultant with over 25 years experience in 15 countries. John works with retailers around the world assisting them with their merchandising, staff and management training, customer flow, customer service and image. www.johnstanley.cc

Comments

[Paul Johnson]

Fascinating insight into thoughts on food miles from across the pond John.

I have been taking a look at food miles and supermarkets from a UK perspective and unearthed the following research in a 2003 Guardian (UK newspaper) investigation. It found the cumulative distance travelled by 20 items in a basket of fresh food, including peas and lettuce, was 100,043 miles … or put another way half the distance to the moon!