The Environmental Impact of Celebrity Flower Arrangements
Extravagant Celebrity Flower Arrangements Need to Be Nipped in the Bud
The cost of extravagant celebrity flower arrangements goes far beyond the price tag. In 2019, it was a literal tunnel of red roses in Kylie Jenner's house, featuring three separate heart-shaped arches built in her honour. For the birth of her daughter, Stormi, in 2018, friends and family joined in on the floral festivities, sending upward of an estimated £50,000 worth of arrangements — from a heaping skull crafted entirely out of pink roses to an entire countertop packed with enormous congratulatory bouquets.
More recently, Offset filled his entire entryway with feathered hot-pink flowers in honour of his sixth wedding anniversary with Cardi B on 20 Sept. She stood in front of the over-the-top displays for scale, her head barely reaching the base of the towering decor. The opulence is hard to ignore, but despite good intentions, the flowers beg the question: just how wasteful are these arrangements?
The flowers beg the question: just how wasteful are these arrangements?
After a curious commenter asked where all the family's leftover florals go, Kourtney Kardashian broached the subject after her birthday in April this year, saying they typically "donate them to the children's hospital," per Entertainment Tonight. While it's interesting to think that individual rose-studded "CHICAGO" letters are repurposed for sick children, the fact remains that all cut flowers contribute to a significant amount of waste, and most of it happens before they even meet their recipient.
At the base level, A-list-style flowers require lots of space and hydration, leading to high water use and chemical runoff from pesticides and fertilisers. That's not to mention the carbon emissions from refrigeration and transportation. With Colombia serving as the single largest producer of cut flowers in the world in 2021, odds are it takes a lot of gas to get stems all the way from the garden to celebrity living rooms.
"When people come to learn about just how damaging the industrial farming of flowers is, it doesn't feel like such a good gift," Kai Chan, a professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, told CBC in September 2022.
The good news is, there are plenty of ways for celebrities to buy flowers more sustainably. They can ensure their bouquets meet proper labour and environmental standards (using certifications from organisations like Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance), look for more locally sourced flowers, ask their florists for less packaging, or simply purchase less-extravagant arrangements less frequently. "It can still look beautiful, and it will be more meaningful," Chan said. "And arguably, that's the point."
