This story has been updated. It originally published on February 12, 2024.
Americans will spend about $2.6 billion on flowers this Valentine’s Day. But beneath all those fresh blooms lies a dirty reality: Many of the ones we buy at local supermarkets grow thousands of miles away, and transporting them is a heavily emitting business. Flying one Valentine’s Day’s worth of flowers from Colombia to the U.S. can produce about 360,000 metric tons of CO2, which is the planet-warming equivalent of about 78,000 cars driving for a full year.
What’s more, those jet-setting blooms are often picked by underpaid workers in developing countries. And, in order to maintain their pristine appearance, many flowers undergo heavy pesticide treatments, with residues sometimes reaching levels up to 50 times higher than what’s allowed on edible crops. Fortunately there are better ways to shower your sweetheart and give a little love to the planet at the same time.
Roses are indeed red, environmentally speaking
Roses are a classic choice in February, but the buds are cold-weather impostors. They’re summer flowers that need lots of sun and heat to thrive, which is why most offseason offerings come from Ecuador, Colombia, or Kenya or else grow in hyper-hot greenhouses. The carbon emissions of wintertime flowers outpaces that of nearly every single other perishable due in large part to shuttling those delicate beauties from farm to store in as little as two days.
Thirty cargo planes full of flowers fly from Colombia to Miami daily for the three weeks before Valentine’s Day, according to reporting in the Washington Post. Once they land, the blooms are quickly shuffled into refrigerated trucks—which get around 13% less range from fuel than regular haulers. What’s that add up to? According to Mike Berners-Lee, a researcher specializing in carbon footprints, a grocery store bouquet has the highest emissions of any item in the shop, including an 8-ounce Brazilian steak.
Sustainable alternatives to roses and other flown-in flowers
Before you shower your sweetheart with rose petals, consider sustainable alternatives that show the planet some love, too. Here are three suggestions:
Good: Opt for local, seasonal cut flowers
If you’re committed to a traditional bouquet, opt for seasonal varieties. Buying locally grown flowers eliminates the need for long-distance transportation and is less energy intensive. Because these blooms are grown in time with the natural rhythm of the local weather, they don’t require as much energy to cultivate as ones that need a bunch of artificial light, heating, or cooling as classic roses. Heating alone can make up 70% to 80% of a greenhouse’s energy expenditure. A couple bright ideas: Daffodils, for one, are in season in most of the U.S. right now, and other early spring flowers like ranunculus, hyacinth, or tulips could be good picks if you live in a warm part of the country, too.
Finding domestic beauties is often as easy as a quick trip to the farmers market, or you can search on the Slow Flowers movement, an online database of locally grown florists. If offerings near you are slim (or nil), you can look for domestic blossoms with the American Grown seal, which means flowers are less likely to have hitched a costly international flight.
For extra Earth credit: Ask your florist to wrap the flowers in newspaper or craft paper instead of plastic, and see if they’ll use a vase you bring in rather than a new one.
Better: Make an upcycled bouquet
Unlike cut flowers, which can wilt in a matter of days, flowers made from upcycled materials can last for years. Old newspapers, coffee filters, or even toilet paper rolls can become artful DIY bouquets, and you can make your eco-friendly flower arrangements special with hand-drawn designs. Your creativity and care for the environment will impress your loved one, but if DIY-ing isn’t your style, Etsy can be your best bud; we especially love these recycled book and map blooms.
It’s also possible to upcycle flowers…from flowers. Many local flower farms stay afloat through these gray months with their own dried winter bundles. These blooms can last through many seasons and seldom cost more than a traditional grocery store bouquet. Just search “local dried flowers” on Google. Your nearest craft store also likely has a selection of dried buds. If you’re one to plan ahead, you can pick local, seasonal summer flowers and dry them into a bouquet ready for birthdays and Valentine’s Days to come.
Best: Plant native flowers & wildflowers
If you’ve got a patch of land to spare, give your sweetheart a garden instead of a bouquet. Native wildflowers, which can be purchased at local garden centers, online, or through nationwide seed exchanges, are adapted to your local climate and therefore require minimal water and upkeep once they take root.
Planting them not only beautifies your surroundings but can also help sock away carbon in their roots and provide habitat and food for local pollinators like bees and butterflies. For extra green love: Opt for wildflower seed coins, which encapsulate seeds in paper pulp that can go right into the ground, minimizing seed packaging.
If you don’t have a patch of earth primed for planting, you can always bring the garden indoors with a potted plant. We particularly like the Hoya succulent. As time goes on, you and your Valentine can watch the plant grow and expand as its leaves form a chain of hearts. If that doesn’t say true love, we don’t know what does.
Additional reporting by Olivia Gieger