There are no more excuses, only actions

Mrs Maggie Hobbs is the co-owner and director of Tambuzi, a grower in Kenya with goals of having beneficial social impact in all its activities. This column was written for the December 2021 edition of FloraCulture International.

“I was in Glasgow for COP26 last month as an informal ambassador for Kenya flower farming.

If there is one thing that we must have all understood from the complex negotiations at the climate summit, it is that business has a critical role to play in mitigating and adapting to our shared Climate Crisis future. This is not to say that we urgently need governments and regulation to push the bigger picture but there is so much that business can do to be a force for good. And in some ways, the opportunity for SMEs is even more exciting, as we have the ability to act with agility and the mindset to co-operate with each other through our relationships with each other.

Tambuzi strives the very best small commercial flower farm in Kenya. We have been in business for 25 years and really focus on growing our roses in a way that can make us proud. In 2019, we started working with One Carbon World (OCW) – a carbon neutral not-for-profit organisation and a global resource partner of the Climate Neutral Now Initiative, launched by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC ) – to measure our carbon footprint as a business. We knew that this was an important next stage in our journey as a responsible business.

Since then, we have been joined at OWC by several other flower farms here in Kenya. In the second week of COP26, OCW hosted a series of events highlighting the carbon journey of their partners. At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5vD8YBnyQs  Climate Heroes – Agriculture and Horticulture -one of the side evetn of COP26’-  we heard from leading companies about their own efforts to make the changes we all need to see.

The current measurement method and offsetting actions are by no means perfect. But it seems to us as a business, that we cannot wait to allow perfect to get in the way of good. All businesses have an opportunity to start their own journeys to being responsible for our impact and mindful of the resources we use in our operations. There are no more excuses, only actions.”