Biodiversity case studies

South Africa: Sustainable development for the world's most botanically-rich habitat

Through the sustainable harvesting and sale of flowers, the Shell Foundation – in partnership with leading British retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) - is working in South Africa to conserve biodiversity, generate jobs and improve the quality of life for local people.

Background

The Cape Floral Kingdom (CFK) in South Africa is the most botanically rich habitat on Earth. It is home to the heath-like fynbos vegetation type and has a floral density greater than anywhere else in the world. Nearly 70% of the plant species found in the Cape occur nowhere else on earth. However, this florally diverse habitat is under threat from urban development and commercial agricultural. The Flower Valley Project seeks to protect this environment, whilst delivering economic progress in a low income, high unemployment area.

The relationship

Shell initially began working with The Flower Valley Conservation Trust in 2002, to find sustainable ways of protecting over 1,000 hectares of land owned by the Trust, whilst simultaneously creating much needed local jobs. One solution was for small farms to harvest the flowers – while being careful to do so in a sustainable manner. It was also recognised that a strong trading operation would be needed to support these conservation initiatives and so, with the Trust, Shell developed a business model that both improved the flower production process and suggested using Shell retail stations in South Africa and the UK as a way to market the flowers. 

As part of a drive to make the project self-sustainable - and thus remove the vulnerability that comes from being reliant on grants and support from financial donors – in 2003 the commercial operations of the project were also placed under the management of a newly formed company, Fynsa (Pty) Ltd. 

More recently, the Shell Foundation has committed to the project after seeing an opportunity to create much needed jobs by helping Fynsa gain access to British markets. It has achieved this through an innovative partnership with UK retailer Marks and Spencer (M&S), which sells some of Fynsa’s flowers in their stores. 

To ensure M&S’ supplier standards are met, the Foundation is working to build the business capacity of Fynsa and to ensure best practice criteria for harvesting the flowers is maintained. 

The Foundation’s involvement has helped demonstrate that the private sector can provide business skills to help the conservation community achieve its goals - and by acting together the partners have proved that it is possible to simultaneously create economic and social development.

Lessons learned

The partnership with M&S gave rise to exciting new business opportunities but also presented challenges. The central lesson learnt was – ‘Walk before you can run’. For example:  

 i) Make sure you build capacity along the whole supply-chain. On one occasion, the flowers featured in the M&S magazine and proved so popular with customers that the farmers – and Fynsa – found it difficult to keep up with demand.  

ii) Find the right management - in this case with experience not only of farming the flowers but also of working with a major retailer like M&S. Orders and standards had to be guaranteed, which meant production processes had to be streamlined.  

iii) Get the buy-in of everyone involved – otherwise expectations are sometimes not met and that can affect the delivery of the programme. For example, M&S’ buyers require products to be of the highest quality, delivered on time and on price. While M&S’ involvement with Fynsa was on a commercial basis, it also had the added element of working with the Foundation to prove that it is possible to simultaneously create both social and economic benefits. That meant the buyers had to allow Fynsa time to build capacity.

Related link

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