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Moving Toward More Responsible Plastic Use in Floral Businesses

Plastics play a major role in floriculture, showing up everywhere from propagation trays and plant containers to floral sleeves, shipping crates, and even price tags. For growers, wholesalers, and retailers alike, plastics offer convenience, durability, and cost efficiency, making them difficult to replace entirely. At the same time, as the industry continues to explore more sustainable practices, plastics present a real challenge. Many businesses are working to balance the practical benefits of plastic with growing concerns about waste, recyclability, and environmental impact. Finding that balance is an important step toward operating within a more circular economy. Sustainabloom offers a collection of guides designed to help floriculture businesses better understand and manage their use of plastics. These resources take a closer…

Redefining Candlelight Through Sustainable Innovation

InfiniTea Candles™ believes beauty shouldn’t come at the cost of the planet. After more than 30 years in the wedding and event industry, their founder witnessed the same troubling pattern night after night: melted pillars, warped LED candles, wax-filled cylinders, and bags of single-use décor tossed in the trash. These moments of celebration create an enormous, unseen environmental footprint. Their patent-pending pillars are crafted from durable, heat-resistant materials and designed to be reused endlessly. Instead of burning through dozens of wax pillars or replacing disposable LEDs, InfiniTea offers a low-waste alternative that looks and performs like traditional candlelight. Each pillar houses a standard reusable 1.5” insert, allowing for real tea lights, LED tea lights, or even oil-lamp inserts—giving event designers,…

Amanda Solliday Named Senior Manager, Sustainabloom

Amanda Solliday will officially join the American Floral Endowment (AFE) team as the Senior Manager of Sustainabloom in January 2026.  A doctoral candidate at North Carolina State University, Amanda has supported AFE’s Sustainabloom program as a member of the research team working with Drs. Melinda Knuth and Brian Jackson. Through this collaborative work, she has helped shape and advance AFE’s vision of building the floriculture industry’s most trusted sustainability education and resource program. “I love taking what we do as researchers and making that accessible to everyone,” she said, noting that when she first heard about the idea of Sustainabloom, the program felt immediately appealing as a way to drive long-term, meaningful change. As just a proposal, she could already…

New SustainaGuides on Lighting and Water Conservation Now Available

Three new guides have been added to the growing lineup of resources provided by Sustainabloom to help simplify the area of floriculture sustainability and support industry members in adopting practical, research-based solutions. The new Lighting and Water Conservation guides join an extensive collection of SustainaGuides available through the Sustainabloom website, developed by the American Floral Endowment (AFE). These new additions continue Sustainabloom’s mission to make sustainability approachable for all segments of the floral industry through clear, data-driven insights and actionable strategies. Lighting Guide for Growers & Suppliers Lighting plays a key role in both plant production and workplace functionality. Sustainabloom’s Lighting guide explores how greenhouse and facility lighting can be optimized to improve plant growth, employee well-being, and energy efficiency.…

NEW! Sustainability Planning Template for Retail Florists

Sustainabloom has released a brand-new free resource to help floral retailers take actionable, measurable steps toward sustainability. The Sustainability Planning Template for Retail Florists is designed to make sustainability planning approachable for businesses of all sizes: helping users assess where they are today, identify opportunities for improvement, and create a trackable plan to move forward. Developed in collaboration with leading floral businesses and industry experts, the template reflects both scientific insights and real-world applications. It was created to meet florists where they are, recognizing that every business’s path toward sustainability looks a little different. Based on an industry-wide survey published earlier this year by the Sustainabloom team, sustainability planning was identified as an emerging practice in floriculture businesses.  “Many businesses…

Progress Powered by Partnerships

Since its launch, Sustainabloom has become the go-to sustainability education resource for the floral community, uniting industry members and businesses to advance environmental, social, and economic progress.  Together, in collaboration with researchers at North Carolina State University, Sustainabloom has created a foundation of knowledge, tools, and inspiration that’s transforming how floriculture businesses think about sustainability.  With the help from industry experts, researchers, and industry partners, Sustainabloom has grown into a thriving hub for sustainability education. Our Founding Supporters helped pave the way for this work, and now we are calling on all floral businesses to help support future Sustainabloom efforts. Every dollar contributed to Sustainabloom goes directly toward creating free, high-quality, research-backed resources accessible to everyone, and we’ve already made…

Syndicate Sales Launches Tennessee Clay to Pioneer U.S. Ceramic Manufacturing with Sustainability at Its Core

Tennessee Clay, a newly launched line of premium ceramic containers from Syndicate Sales, is proud to call Tennessee home—and even prouder to bring large-scale ceramic manufacturing to American soil. Produced in a highly automated facility in McKenzie, Tennessee Clay is the only operation of its kind in the U.S. manufacturing ceramic pots at scale. By combining regional pride, sustainability, innovative design, and a deep respect for both people and the environment, Tennessee Clay offers an elegant, eco-conscious addition to the Syndicate product offering. The clay is sustainably and responsibly mined, and sourced just ten miles from the factory, significantly reducing the carbon footprint of transportation.  They are using new energy-efficient equipment that meets the latest industry standards, ensuring minimal energy…

Inventory Management Done Right

There are many reasons why a solid inventory management process can help businesses operate more efficiently. Business owners who have a firm grasp on accurate inventory needs will see it in their bottom line: it can save money, optimize storage space and remain prepared for changing consumer markets. It also plays a key role in sustainability.  Managing inventory properly can minimize the amount of unused product that is destined as waste to become a contributor to global warming. Overordering and overstocking are also wasteful ways to increase carbon emissions through supply chains and storage operations. Excessive inventory also leads to inefficient uses of resources, such as energy and water, to produce and store the product. To support floriculture businesses in…

Nutrient Management Practices That Benefit Plants & Our Planet

In the field of floriculture, nutrients are a vital part of what helps plants thrive. Primary macronutrients including nitrogen, phosphate and potassium are the essential ingredients in fertilizer that assist in the growth of everything from flowering plants to crops that are produced for food, clothing, and other items.  But as the old idiom suggests, “Too Much of a Good Thing” can sometimes lead to more harm than good. While that relates to many things in life, it is especially true in floriculture. Growers must be cautious in the use of these macronutrients, often called the Big 3 or N-P-K. While they are critical for good plant production, excessive use could not only be detrimental to plant health but harm…

Jiffy Growing Solutions: Working Towards a Greener Future for All

Every year, millions of tons of sugarcane are harvested around the world. After harvest and processing, the material often left behind is bagasse – a fibrous material that has often been treated as waste, burned for energy, or left to decompose. At Jiffy, they saw something different. They saw potential. Jiffy Bagasse is not a new product on its own, but a sustainable, peat-free raw material designed to be part of your substrate mixes. Blended with other components, it helps create growing media that perform well for a wide range of crops – from bedding plants and houseplants to nursery stock. With sugarcane being the largest crop by mass globally, bagasse offers a consistent, renewable, and widely available resource. It…

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