Does flying flowers from Colombia damage the planet?
All plane journeys have an impact on the climate so if you ban flowers then you’d have to ban food, medical aid and holidays. In reality while it may sound mad, research by Cranfield University has shown that it is actually more ‘planet friendly’ to grow roses in Colombia and fly them into the UK than grow them in Holland or the UK. The reason is that whilst you would save on plane fuel you’d actually have to use far more fuel to heat the greenhouses in Holland or UK to achieve the same sort of flower. You’d also use more energy on light because it has to be artificially created and so together you would be adding to the problem not taking away from it. The majority of Colombian flowers actually come in on passenger planes (belly filler shipments as they’re known) so actually we’re using planes that are already flying rather than adding in extra flights, Obviously at peak occasions there are extra flights but that’s simply to meet customer demand because there aren’t enough locally gro
