Fleurop & Roses with Fairtrade Max Havelaar label

Sustainability can be ecological, but also social. The aim here is not only to keep an eye on the environment, but also to look after the welfare of hard-working people - including those who harvest flowers in developing countries. Fleurop has been a partner of Max Havelaar since October 2003 and offers roses with the Fairtrade Max Havelaar label via www.fleurop.ch.

Fairtrade Max Havelaar is a non-profit organization that was founded in Switzerland in 1992 to promote fair trade with products from developing countries. The primary focus is to ensure a decent working environment for plantation employees and to improve living conditions for families and whole villages. So that people can recognize such products, the Fairtrade Max Havelaar Foundation labels fair trade products with its Fairtrade label. That also applies to roses.

Roses with the Fairtrade label are slightly more expensive because they include a premium for community projects. The premium goes directly from every purchase to a separate premium account for the flower farms, where the workers decide what they will do with this money. This can be, for example, subsidized visits to the doctor or the construction of drinking water wells or schools. Microcredits of up to 500 US dollars are also granted, which are mainly used to build houses, set up new businesses and promote women's business activities.

Fairtrade Max Havelaar certified plantations follow strict regulations to protect the environment and groundwater, as well as the use of fertilizers and sprays. External environmental experts confirm that Fairtrade-certified plantations are environmental leaders and have been proved to use less spray. Last but not least, water consumption has been reduced by almost half over the last 10 years by switching to drip irrigation and landless farming. The surplus irrigation water is often purified in a closed cycle and used several times over. The sewage, on the other hand, is purified in natural treatment systems.

Each rose can be traced back to the producing plantation via code. This makes the market transparent and promotes awareness that these and many other roses come from developing countries and that we have a certain responsibility for the people who grow the flowers.

In short: if you buy a Fairtrade rose from Fleurop and enter its code at www.maxhavelaar.ch in the «Fairtrade-Code» search field on the homepage, you will find details of what the originating rose farm does with the Fairtrade premium.