Ethical Christmas – making the dream a reality

Ethical Christmas decorations and gifts are a hot topic amongst the Organic Blooms team.

Christmas, whether we like it or not, is the season of consumerism. Shopping for gifts and planning festive fayre can become an ethical minefield for those concerned about organic production, animal welfare, Fairtrade, plastic pollution, deforestation for palm oil and soy production, carbon footprint – the list goes on.

As an organic grower and social enterprise, ethics are at the heart of our business. Organic Blooms’ Christmas products have always been low impact – we have never used plastic decorations or tinsel in our wreaths and table decorations. This year, however, we have been trying to make our Christmas gifts and products more ethical than ever before.

We have done lots of work on our packaging, with FSC approved boxes and papers, and plant-based compostable cellophanes for lining and wrapping. We’re also looking at whether we can improve on the natural cotton and jute ribbons we currently use.

This year we are supplying willow wreaths to Abel & Cole woven from our own organic willow and foliage and decorated with organic crab apples, cinnamon sticks, and orange slices.

For our own beautiful, naturally-decorated foliage wreaths we cover wire bases with moss harvested sustainably under licence in Northumberland. Spruce, a key component of our wreaths and table decorations, has to be bought in. We have tried to seek out the best sources, considering how sustainably and how far away it is grown.

Hampers make great gifts and we have selected our contents to include organically produced, locally made and plastic-free treats – we hope you’ll be as pleased with the results as we are. We’re especially pleased with our gorgeous Christmas hamper. We also think that our flower subscriptions, year of flowers, four seasons of flowers and our brand new flower club all make fabulous, environmentally friendly gifts that keep giving through the year.

We hope that our quest for ethical decorations and gifts will help you to achieve a more ethical Christmas this year. However, with so many considerations we can never rest on our laurels and our discussion and search will continue. We will be looking for transparent, traceable origins that allow us to see how, where and by whom our materials are produced, processed, packaged and transported.

We wish you a merry, ethical Christmas and we will endeavour to make Christmases yet to come more ethical still!