How viable is sustainable floristry? Part 1: The 10% trigger
In 2024, I wrote a piece called What is Sustainable Floristry. In it, I promised to follow on with my thoughts on how sustainable floristry can be viable in today’s world.
Almost two years on, that question has been simmering quietly in the back of my mind. And now, I want to try to answer it - not in one go, but in a series of journal entries over the coming months.
The long and short of it is it’s complicated. But I believe there are a number of levers - on both the supply and demand side - that, if pulled, could create real, lasting change in the floral industry.
Today, let’s start with the demand side. And something I call the 10% trigger.
The Rise of the Values-Led Consumer
Many years ago, I was living in Singapore, working in a small company looking at consumer trends across Asia. They had conducted a significant piece of research focused on a new kind of customer (first identified in Boulder, Colorado) who wasn’t shopping based on price or brand, but on personal values around health, wellness, sustainability.
Back then, they were called LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) consumers. Today, they’re more commonly known as values-led consumers. They’re climate-aware, digitally fluent, and actively seek out brands aligned with their beliefs.
And they’ve been quietly changing markets.
The 10% Trigger
I remember sitting in a meeting with a large FMCG beauty brand. They’d just redone a significant market study on shampoo sales, comparing their leading products to everything else in the category.
Five years earlier, the big household brands had controlled 95% of the market. The “other” category? They held just 5%.
But now that “other” bucket had tipped past 10%. And this had made the executives sit up and pay attention.
What was going on? It turns out, that 10% was made up of brands speaking directly to the values-led consumer. And this segment had grown by 5% in 5 years. The company’s response? They realised they had better understand this customer, and start to develop an offering that met their needs around formulations, packaging and sustainability…
The customer was driving change - and the industry was beginning to respond.
(I recognise that the beauty industry is still far from perfect. But supply chains have improved. And that shift in customer behaviour was instrumental.)
Change Happens When People Feel Good
Behind the scenes: Mora Floral Design installing at Flowers on the Edge, photographer: Tilly Wace
The second insight from that time: people don’t change behaviour because they’re guilted into it. You can throw facts, stats, and horror stories at them, but it rarely works.
Real change happens when people want something. When the sustainable option feels beautiful, joyful, and aspirational. That’s when they buy it. And if they get to feel good and virtuous? Even better.
Which brings me back to floristry.
Season-Led Floristry is the “Other”
Today, season-led floristry - local, sustainable, design-forward - still sits under the 10% mark. But it’s closing in. And that matters.
Influential names are taking note, with locally grown flowers centre stage at the Royal Weddings and for Charli XCX’s summer wedding. Floral design exhibitions like Flowers on the Edge, British Flowers Week at the Garden Museum and Strawberry Hill House Flower Festival are also helping to shift perception.
Season-led floristry is no longer just a fringe movement. It’s becoming aspirational.
And once we cross that 10% threshold, the rest of the industry won’t be far behind…