Greenhouse Sustainability is celebrating its 10th anniversary! To mark the occasion, we're looking back with some of our valued partners on our collaboration over the years, and also peeking into the future. This time, we spoke with Nicole Konings, Sustainability Coordinator at Royal Lemkes.

What does Royal Lemkes do?
Royal Lemkes is a distinguished royal family business with a rich history spanning over 140 years. From our base in Bleiswijk and a vital logistics hub in the United Kingdom, we efficiently deliver the highest quality plants across Europe, always striving for cost-effectiveness. With a dedicated team of over 260 employees, Royal Lemkes operates as a comprehensive Plant Service Provider, actively serving garden centers, DIY chains, supermarkets, and home furnishings retailers. We proudly supply major European retailers like IKEA, Jumbo, OBI, B&Q, Praxis, ALDI, Truffaut, and Blue Diamond. Our plants are meticulously sourced from approximately 600 growers across Europe, with our top 100 growers contributing a substantial 80 percent of our total volume. Royal Lemkes fosters strong, collaborative partnerships with these growers.

What does sustainability mean to you?
For us, sustainability is fundamentally woven into our mission. We are deeply committed to the sustainable growth of our people, our relationships, our business operations, and the world around us. We actively strive to contribute to a greener and more socially conscious world. This ambitious goal isn't one we pursue alone. Collaborating closely with our supply chain partners and industry peers, we are dedicated to driving the transition towards a more sustainable sector. Our focused efforts include minimizing the environmental footprint of our products and processes, ensuring responsible resource utilization, preserving biodiversity, and maintaining a fair, transparent supply chain.

What's your relationship with Greenhouse Sustainability?
We collaborate on multiple fronts, vigorously championing the importance of uniform footprint calculations and comprehensive insight into environmental impact across the entire supply chain. We actively supported the development of the FloriPEFCR and played a role in optimizing the footprint tool itself. Furthermore, we consistently utilize their TraderTool (which includes a crucial CSRD module) and, as of this year, have also integrated the ChainTool. Recognizing the importance of shared knowledge, we organized dedicated knowledge sessions on footprint calculations for Royal Lemkes' top 100 growers, and, of course, we were prominently present at the Horticulture Footprint Event in March.

What's been the highlight so far?
A significant highlight was undoubtedly the footprint knowledge sessions we hosted at Royal Lemkes earlier this year for our top 100 growers. During these impactful sessions, Royal Lemkes presented the latest retail developments in sustainability, while Greenhouse Sustainability delivered an insightful presentation on the environmental product footprint (FloriPEFCR) and the specialized tools designed to facilitate it. These sessions represented a valuable moment for collaborative knowledge sharing and marked a collective stride toward a more transparent and sustainable supply chain. We are actively working with our growers to both demonstrably measure and reduce the environmental impact of our entire chain. This commitment is underscored by a major development: as of January 1, 2026, calculating the product footprint will become a mandatory prerequisite for delivery to Royal Lemkes. This is a crucial step toward cultivating truly future-proof plants.

What's your ambition for the future?
Our overarching ambition is to significantly reduce emissions across our entire supply chain. This is a goal we know can only be achieved through steadfast collaboration with our growers, transporters, and retail partners. That's why we've formally committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Gaining precise insight into emissions and identifying the critical hotspots within the chain is absolutely essential for implementing effective, targeted reductions. Greenhouse Sustainability is a key partner in this endeavor, supporting us by enabling transparency, comparability, and robust progress monitoring. Together, we are building a measurably more sustainable supply chain.

Is there anything else you'd like to add? 
A heartfelt congratulations on your 10th anniversary! Greenhouse Sustainability has played a truly pivotal role in making sustainability measurable and actionable within the ornamental horticulture supply chain. Their unwavering dedication to transparency, their emphasis on reliable data, and their commitment to comparability and collaboration have made comprehensive footprint calculation both possible and widely accessible. We eagerly anticipate continuing our strong partnership in the years to come, working together to build an even more sustainable and future-proof supply chain.