Business is blooming... Cork flower shop's green ambition

The Cork Flower Studio on Douglas Street is a treat for the senses, offering everything from vibrant florals, plants, great coffee, and Irish-designed gifts to homeware, local artisan chocolate, jewellery, baby presents, and more.

While the team’s commitment to quality is readily apparent, visitors to this iconic store may not be aware of its strong sustainability ethos, forged over time by its talented, creative co-owner, Justine Looney.

When Justine first ed her sister Eavan Cotter in the Cork Flower Studio business some 14 years ago, the business was only three years old. Her primary focus was on offering Irish art and design products, which tend to be sustainable by nature.

Over time, her attention turned to the flower side of the business and, with it, the less sustainable aspects of the industry.

“By becoming more involved in the flower side of things, I started to see how much plastic was involved in the industry; it was just absolutely crazy. Flowers are the biggest part of our business, really. The design things are going the whole time, and they’re the most sustainable side of the business without training, just because small makers and designers tend to find nifty little ways of packaging things and things like that.”

When someone pointed out how the floral tributes outside Buckingham Palace for Princess Diana were primarily plastic, Justine’s eyes were opened to the sea of unnatural waste.

“It’s just was so contradictory to have something that’s natural and that’s grown in the soil wrapped in plastic. There ends up being more packaging involved in something natural than the product itself.”

Her first act of environmentalism in the business was to shift away from plastic to more sustainable and reusable options.

“We started to do glass vases instead of packaging; we just said, we’ll try it out and see what happens. Like a deposit scheme, people could get a refund or get money back if they dropped the vase back, and it absolutely took off, and nobody was looking for the money back.

“They were just so delighted that they didn’t have all this rubbish to throw away. We started the cycle where the vases were coming back weekly. That was the first step in our sustainable journey.”

Through Justine’s pioneering approach to sourcing more sustainable alternatives, she created a unique offering that has led people to seek Cork Flower Studio’s products. There’s pride in her voice as she shares the details.

“People ring us up and ask, ‘Are you the business that does flowers in glass vases?’ That’s really nice.”

With each sustainability step forward, the business continues to grow in its courage to try new things.

“One of the big things we found is that each thing leads to another. We didn’t go into this with a massive plan to become green. It was like, ‘Let’s try this,’ and then that was like, ‘Wow! That really worked well, and now why don’t we try this?’ We’re always trying something different and new and really trying to kind of commit to being just better.”

And, sure enough, over the coming years, they did become better, one business decision at a time. Five years ago, Cork Flower Studio on Douglas street became a ‘Parklet Partner’, creating and managing a beautiful mini-planted area outside their door that gave rise to a space for coffee customers to sit and enjoy the streetscape. An enriching space for the business, locality and biodiversity.

As a result, customers could now enjoy coffee in this new space, rather than taking it away. This opened Justine’s eyes to a new environmental problem to tackle, a waste source so ubiquitous it tends to go ignored: single-use cups. Seeing the full extent of the waste created daily prompted her next bold step: introducing 2GoCups.

“So, people will pay a deposit, and then, when they return the cup, they get the deposit back. And what we found in the first month was that people are going, ‘Oh, that’s a great idea. I’ll take a paper cup, but that’s a great idea’.

“So, then we thought, let’s just get rid of the paper cups completely and take the choice out of it. It’s been massively successful, and we reckon, just based on figures before, we’ve prevented about 50,000 cups and lids from going into landfills since 2020.”

It is a testament to Justine’s ion for the environment that she and her sister took this leap, as these values-led decisions come with a potential risk to their small business’s bottom line.

“The decisions have been brave in a sense because you are taking a chance that people will it, but it is also really rewarding,” said Justine.

Even in rare instances when someone doesn’t want a 2GoCup, Justine still sees the positive in the experience, as it plants the seeds of change for their future consumption choices,

“The odd person will say, ‘I’ll leave the coffee’. But you’ve still put the idea in their head, and you still made them think a little bit about ‘maybe I should be looking at having my own cup?’”

Justine is heavily involved in the Cork business community, an active member of the Douglas Street Business Association, and a creative force volunteering at the Langford Row community garden. She is quick to praise those she meets for providing ideas and inspiration and the uniquely close-knit nature of independent businesses here in Cork.

“Something that I absolutely love about Cork is how many independent businesses are here … There’s something so inspiring about sharing stories or hearing stories from other businesses in Cork and the things they’ve done.

“And I have to say, the city council and the Local Enterprise Office have been great just for providing opportunities to get together, to share stories or incentives, to share ideas or to learn from each other.”

While her story of sustainability sounds easy, there is a lot that goes into every change. She gives an example of something many of us may not even be aware of: the plastic foam in flower arrangements.

“It’s pure plastic never goes away, and cemeteries all over the country are just littered with it. It’s just so depressing. There is an alternative to that, but it’s quite tricky to work with, so we’ve really had to upskill to learn that. So we’re constantly looking for new ways. They’re all being developed; there is a whole worldwide movement of sustainable floristry.”

Even their door wreaths evolved from being embellished with plastic to being a plastic-free adornment, which has made the team more creative and resourceful in their approach.

“We made a big effort to change all our decorations when we make door wreaths and things like that to wooden or anything that would break down itself over time, as we just stay away from plastic as much as possible. That worked out brilliantly, and it has forced us to be more creative. Because you don’t automatically have all the right colours you need, they’re more natural objects. It’s worked really well. Our style has developed because of it.”

Since Covid-19, Ireland’s local flower growing industry has been flourishing, and Justine is delighted to be able to source Irish flowers and foliage locally when possible, with Ireland’s season running predominantly from March to October.

This choice s local businesses, is better for the environment, and Justine is a firm believer that Irish produce is best.

“We get flowers from three flower farmers and foliage from two or three other different producers… It’s fabulous to be able to use Irish-grown things; they are a better product. They’re better than what we’re bringing in from overseas. That’s been a big hit with people as well. I think they love the idea of getting something that’s locally grown.”

Justine has a lot of positives to say about working with her sister.

“Eavan is brilliant, and she is the one who finds new ways of doing things by researching new replacement products and things like that. We are a team effort. I think you need that balance. You need the two approaches to find the best solutions.”

Sustainability has become a cornerstone of the business offering, as well as central to the team’s approach to work-life balance.

“Do you know what’s funny? Something that sustainability threw up for us as well was just asking ourselves, like, ‘How do we keep going? How do we kind of maintain this pace to keep going forever?’ We’ve made changes within the business.

“We close now on Saturdays so that everybody gets a weekend off… that was a big thing for us to make us realise that sustainability is more than just like the green initiatives; it’s actually being sustainable, sustaining the business for as long as possible.”

With her holistic approach to sustainability, courage, and commitment to making ongoing changes, Justine’s story is a model for independent businesses looking to make positive changes. Cork Flower Studio is much more than a shop; it embodies its owners’ values and is blossoming as a result.