Philadelphia Floral Guild, your trusted source for locally-grown wholesale flowers, was delighted to be one of the finalists in the SustainPHL awards this year. Over a hundred businesses, non-profits and individuals exemplifying sustainable practices and passion are nominated each year for these awards. This past Thursday was the award ceremony, hosted at the Academy of Natural Sciences. It was great fun to spend an evening celebrating sustainability and meeting dozens of kindred spirits! Several jokes were made throughout the night that it felt like being at the Oscars. There were even sealed envelopes opened on stage!
We did not win, but it was immensely gratifying (and humbling) to see our logo come up on the big screen on the stage! We were finalists in the “FuturePHL” category, along with the Philadelphia International Airport and Vicinity Energy (the winner). To think our little 14-month old floral startup was even considered for this category was ah-mazing!
While celebrating all this sustainability, we kept thinking of you all. We wouldn’t have even been considered for this award if you weren’t supporting us and helping us make a big impact so quickly. In the past 12 months, we’ve sold 219,760 stems (all grown within 50 miles of our distribution hub) to 126 florists. In doing such, together we are disrupting a global supply chain that pours tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere each year to transport a highly perishable luxury item around the globe, shedding trash all along the way.
At PFG, our zero-waste approach is in stark contrast to the traditional wholesaler: we have eliminated all single-use plastics and excess packaging from our distribution process. We compost everything. We reuse all our buckets. We run our floral coolers on solar energy. We keep all our sales truly local, within a 50 mile radius of our hub. And we will continue to do even more as we move forward!
We are deeply grateful to you for trusting us in this process of rethinking the way small local farms can serve local florists for greater sustainability in flowers. The work you all are doing towards deeper sustainability in the floral industry deserves to be applauded and recognized too! We see you! And we say THANK YOU!