Before sending those flowers to your lovey this Valentine’s Day think the whole deal through. The marketing creation and faux holiday that is Valentine’s Day accounts for a stout 40% of all fresh flower annual sales.  Unfortunately, the world’s largest florist, 1-800-Flowers, doesn’t abide by Fair Trade standards for its primarily female workforce in Ecuador and Columbia, where most of its flowers are grown.

Organizations like Change.org are trying to motivate 1-800-Flowers to start selling Fair Trade certified flowers – which would mean providing basic worker rights like overtime, reduced exposure to toxic pesticides and other verifiable environmental standards and worker rights.

If you’re still compelled to buy flowers for V-Day purchase them from a Fair Trade certified source like Whole Foods, Stop & Shop, or online from Organic Bouquet.com where you can also find many other organic and bio-dynamically grown products.

Source: The Alternative Consumer

Image courtesy of Creative Commons.

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