During Proflora 2023, Asocolflores Granted the Lucie de Vélez Sustainability and Shared Value Award

For 50 years, Asocolflores has been the reference in the agricultural sector for interpreting and including sustainability in all of its actions. During Proflora 2023

• The Lucie de Vélez Sustainability and Shared Value Award granted by Asocolflores is a recognition that gives light, exalts, and shares value-generating experiences in the environmental and social spheres and is promoted by Asocolflores member companies.
• For this second version of this award, 37 experiences were evaluated in the categories of “Social Experiences” and “Environmental Experiences”. The results were six winning companies with their six experiences.
• Another, The winners were chosen by a jury made up of four (04) experts representing academia, science, and sustainability.

Bogotá. October 2023.

For the last 5 decades, we have implemented a great number of programs and activities oriented towards generating for our members, coworkers, communities, and for the country: development, welfare, inclusion, equity, and social and environmental respectful relationships. Thus, in Proflora 2023 we are proud to acknowledge and recognize some of the experiences that have been developed in this sense by the flower sector during the last year”, said Augusto Solano, CEO of Asocolflores.

With respect to sustainability

Asocolflores occupies today, through the representation of its CEO, Augusto Solano, the chair of the Consejo Empresarial Colombiano para el Desarrollo Sostenible [Colombian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CECODES, in Spanish), Colombia Chapter of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

Accordingly “We must remember and give value to the great number of initiatives that our companies have undertaken to strengthen the quality of life of their workers, to ensure social and economic development of the communities where floriculture has influence, and to respect the ecosystems at the flower farms and their areas of influence. This price shows that flower-growers make our society bloom”, Solano pointed out.

Additionally,

This year the Sustainability and Shared Value Award acknowledges the work of Lucie de Vélez. The wife of Ernesto Vélez, from the Suasuque flower farm, both charter members of Asocolflores. They have shown their love of family values, the countryside, and the development of the communities.

Lucie, stands out for being an active leader, generating strategies and managing resources to benefit the welfare of the flower farm workers and of the flower farm communities in general, as a promoter of programs such as “Cultivating Peace in the Family” and the Alejandría Library, today known as the Patricia Vélez Public Rural Library – San Gabriel.

In Asocolflores,

Lucie de Vélez owns passion, commitment, and a sturdy conviction that prosperity is tightly linked with social purpose.

Accordingly the winners were selected by a jury of experts comprised by Gheidy Gallo, CEO of ProBoyacá Region. Sergio Rengifo Caicedo, Executive Director of CECODES. Adriana Solano, CEO of the Colombian Security Council (CCS, in Spanish)​. And Juan Ricardo Gómez, Director of the Master´s Program of Conservation. And Use of Biodiversity at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana [Javeriana University]​.

THE WINNERS

Social Experiences Category: acknowledgement to the development of policies, programs and/or significant projects to improve the experience of people and the social and labor impact of the flower-growing companies at different levels:

• Best community management program: Fagua Ambassadors – MG Consultores [MG Consultants]
  This program, with headquarters at Fundación Casa Tibaná [the Tibaná House Foundation]. Seeks to generate integration between the various local actors. Adding value to the community by giving training in leadership skills through experimental education methods.
• Best management practice in Occupational Safety (SST, in Spanish). Your safety is our responsibility – Flores del Este [Flowers from the East]. This strategy has reduced injuries due to falls on the same level. The initiative uses flower-production byproducts to adapt working surfaces, providing safety to the workers and enforcing an innovative cleaner production.
• Best training and labor wellbeing program: We are thinking about you… Best person, best team – Guirnaldas/Innovaflora. Basically This strategy is oriented towards strengthening the work and family interactions of employees through personal tools and the development of soft skills.

Environmental Experiences Category:

Recognition to the development of policies, programs. And/or prominent projects to mitigate the impacts inherent to the operation of flower-growing companies.

• Flores El Capiro S.A [El Capiro Flowers] – Biofactory: Since 2022, jointly with the company INBACTER, Flores el Capiro implemented its laboratory of beneficial fungi called Biofactory. The objective of this biological treatment project in the plantation is cost reduction, soil health improvement, biofertilization, and some pest control.
• Cultivos La Planicie S.A.S. [La Planicie Crops] – Environmental Management Plan – Landscape and Biodiversity Management Program. This program is framed within the suitable use and management of natural resources such as water, soil, fauna, flora, atmosphere. And landscape, under the scope of the farm´s mission and vision. By identifying the high ecological value areas of the farm.
• Deliflor Américas – New Deliflor Américas Home office. Basically the construction of the House of Chrysanthemums within the 8-hectare home office, in La Ceja, Antioquia, is a thorough concept to generate added value to the region, the country, the industry, and the workers and clients.