Sustainability

A huge step forward! As the first company in the flowers industry, Hoek flowers is working with re-usable pink (duh) flower boxes. These boxes are for a 100% out of recycled materials… and re-usable up to 200 times! Isn’t that amazing?!

Before we were sending all our flowers in cardboard boxes. Although we did pick the majority up and recycled them, nothing beats this new invented box. No trees & bees were harmed in the process of making this beauty. And after 200 times of use, the boxes will be fully recycled and 80% of the all the material is being re-used into a new box again! This new way of transporting flowers is going to make such a difference. As with a lot of things in life, this project only is and remains a success if we’re all working together. Therefore, we really need the help of our florists, transport companies and employees. We all need to make a little extra effort. Picking the empty boxes up, cleaning them, re-stacking them and so much more… but in the end, worth it!

Currently, our roof is covered with over 6.700 solar panels! Since not all our seasons are as sunny, we cannot cover the full 100% of our need for energy (yet). For now, we already generate 2.000.000 Kwh a year, which covers 75% of the total energy we use. Our future goal is to cover a 100%... how cool (or better said - hot) would that be?

Early mornings ask for (lots of) coffee, right? Here at Hoek flowers we drink quite a few. Since we find it important that suppliers worldwide – whether we talk about flowers or coffee – do get fair prices, all coffee at Hoek flowers is supplied by our local coffee roastery ‘Koffie Lovers’. They only do work with Fair Trade certified farms and invest a part of their turnover in local communities to give something back to the countries they do get their coffee beans from.

Lots of growers Hoek flowers is doing business with, are certified according to the FSI basket of standards 2025. This institution overlooks all the social and environmental certifications that do exist in the global flower industry. In our web shop you can find the option ‘certificate’ under the filter called: specials. This filter can be used to make sure the flowers you buy are grown by high social and environmental standards.

Good to know is that the flowers we import, from for example Colombia are flown by our partner in Blue, KLM. KLM, the Royal Dutch airline, is again rewarded as being the most sustainable and green airline in the world.

Also, we found a way to optimize logistics & packing – together with our farms - to reduce the emission per stem to the very minimum. We’re continuously talking to local suppliers about how to reduce the use of plastic and to supplier abroad to see how we can pack and ship more efficiently in order to reduce pollution.