Earth Day 2025: Sustainable Growing Solutions for Modern Horticulture

Each year, Earth Day prompts reflection on the way we interact with and impact the natural world. For the horticulture and agriculture sectors—industries rooted in the earth—this day serves as both a celebration and a challenge. It’s a moment to recognize the progress we’ve made in sustainable growing practices, while also acknowledging how much more work there is to do.

As growers, manufacturers, and suppliers, we have a shared responsibility to nurture not only what we grow, but how we grow it. Earth Day reminds us that the choices made across the supply chain—from raw materials to finished products—have a lasting impact on the health of our planet.

Earth Day and the Growing Industry: Why It Matters

The connection between horticulture and the planet is clear, as the sustainability of both is tightly woven together. Our industry depends on fertile soil, stable climates, and access to clean water. These natural resources are increasingly under pressure, so protecting the environment through sustainable growing is key to building a more resilient agricultural system.

On Earth Day, many growers and industry partners take the opportunity to reflect on their environmental impact and explore opportunities for long-term improvement. Earth Day serves as a moment to pause and ask: What more can be done, together?

Rethinking Success in Business with the Triple Bottom Line

In conversations about sustainability, the term “Triple Bottom Line” often comes up. It refers to a business philosophy that expands success metrics beyond financial performance to include:

People – creating fairness, wellbeing, and opportunity for employees, customers, and communities.
Planet – minimizing environmental impact and restoring natural systems.
Profit – remaining economically viable and able to invest in continued innovation.

This framework has become especially relevant in horticulture, where balancing resource use, product performance, and long-term environmental health is part of everyday decision-making. How can businesses design systems that benefit all three areas?

Our Evolving Approach to Sustainability

At Jiffy, Earth Day aligns with a broader, year-round commitment to sustainable practices. Over the years, we've adapted our materials, production methods, and goals to better align with the needs of people and the planet all while continuing to support professional growers around the world.

Our recent efforts include:

1. Investing in renewable energy and more efficient manufacturing.

In the past five years we have increased our renewable electricity consumption by 63%, cutting our production emissions by 38% and more than 6,400 tons each year. In Sri Lanka, we’ve covered all available rooftop space with solar panels to make the most of the sunny climate. In 2024 we generated more than 1.3 million kwhs of clean electricity on site, which equates to 35% of all the electricity we used in Sri Lanka.

In addition, our factories in Canada, Denmark and The Netherlands all buy clean electricity generated from solar and wind. In Denmark, waste heat from our most energy-intensive production process at our factory is captured and used to heat the packing hall, reducing our gas consumption, and consequent emissions by more than 100 tons per year.

2. Expanding our offering of peat-free and recycled-content products.

Transitioning away from peat is one of the most significant shifts in our sector. It's not a simple swap, but rather a process that requires investment, collaboration, and experimentation. Our role is to support growers during this transition, including sharing research, gathering feedback, and refining solutions that align with real-world needs.

This process was detailed in our recent article on co-creating peat-free potting solutions. It’s a reminder that innovation doesn’t happen in isolation but requires trust, curiosity, and a willingness to explore new materials and methods together.

3. Strengthening internal and external partnerships to support innovation and transparency.

In 2024, we began work to monitor our suppliers for human rights and working conditions to make sure our suppliers share our social values.

Each initiative represents a step forward in our mission to reduce environmental impact while maintaining product quality and reliability.

Innovations with Impact

A large part of our sustainability journey involves rethinking the materials we use and how they’re sourced. In response to growing concern over plastic waste, we’ve introduced Growbags made with 40% recycled plastic. These solutions allow us to support circular resource use and reduce dependency on virgin materials.

Another major focus is the shift away from peat-based substrates. While peat has long played a central role in horticulture, concerns over carbon emissions and habitat disturbance have prompted both regulatory and industry changes. Our peat-free growing media are designed to meet performance standards while supporting more renewable and regionally-sourced alternatives.

The development of a new peat- and plastic-free Jiffy Pot showcases what’s possible when cross-disciplinary teams come together to create new solutions. Co-creation—working closely with growers, scientists, and engineers—has been key to advancing these sustainable alternatives in a way that’s both practical and scalable.

Taking the Next Step in Sustainability

As Earth Day reminds us, sustainability is not a destination in which we are but instead a continual process of learning and adapting. While the progress made across the industry is promising, the path ahead requires ongoing collaboration and shared commitment.

For Jiffy, this means continuing to listen to growers, explore renewable inputs, and measure our progress with transparency. For growers and partners, it might mean trialing new products, sharing insights, or engaging in conversations about long-term solutions.

What’s clear is that no one company, grower, or organization can tackle these challenges alone. Earth Day is a powerful reminder that we’re all connected, and that sustainable growth depends on collective effort.

Here Are Some Resources to Explore Further:

Let’s work together

Jiffy is a leading global supplier of premium growing media and solution thinking. We aim to serve you, our customers in plant propagation and cultivation, to achieve better results with fewer worries. We do this by continually improving, innovating, and working toward our common goals, based on scientific research, teamwork, and decades of experience. Let’s develop sustainable plant growing solutions together: Let’s start today!