Too many manufacturers have cynically jumped on the "green" bandwagon and launched peat-free, or even peat-reduced(!) ranges while still happily marketing peat-based equivalents. As Steve says: "It's barely honest and depending how peat-free has been achieved, it can create more environmental problems than it solves. Worst of all it does consumers a disservice by starving this sector of genuine investment in product development and consumer education, leaving the average gardener willing to be green, but confused - or even disappointed - by the products on offer. 

"No-one can now be blind to the consumer-led drive towards environmentally-friendly products for the garden - all the research reports demonstrate this trend - but in practice many individual garden enthusiasts end up falling back on the tried and tested options.

"Until more companies stop their hypocrisy and become truly green and environmentally holistic in their approach, then these issues will persist.  And in my opinion that will be to the detriment of the garden market overall, holding it back from full commitment to sound environmental practice - while the supermarkets and the multiples and with them the mass of consumers march on in that direction. So, there are two things which genuinely environmentally sound companies need to do. One is invest in a holistic long term green strategy and the other is invest in the education of the consumer to be able to tell the difference between the genuine and the cynical green products. 

"Implementing a holistic long term green strategy means having to think honestly about peat-free.  Important although it is, peat-free has become a bandwagon onto which the marketing cynics have jumped. This is a shame as protecting the peat bogs - which are not renewable as some would try to claim - is genuinely vital to the environmental future. It is, however, only one aspect of what should be a multi-faceted greening of products.  We should equally be looking where our products, their ingredients and their packaging is coming from - it's no good trying to cure one green problem, only to create another!

"For example, removing peat and replacing it with for example coir is hardly a very green thing to do.  We should be thinking now in terms of carbon footprint and the drive towards carbon neutrality and bringing coir half way across the world as a peat substitute is just replacing one environmental problem with another. Moreover, if the green agenda is now the only acceptable agenda, why is it still acceptable for growing media manufacturers retailing in the UK to source ingredients from anywhere other than the UK?  Which is why Vital Earth is acknowledging that the fact that it is made from locally sourced recycled garden waste is actually more critical in the long run than its peat-free nature.

"The Vital Earth peat-free, no added chemicals product range is made by recycling garden waste, adding forestry products and some nutrients derived from food-grade by-products of the food industry. The company's £8 million plant at Ashbourne in Derbyshire is the largest and most advanced in-vessel composting site in the UK. The primary raw materials - green, cardboard and food waste from kerbside refuse collections in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and North Shropshire - are brought to Ashbourne and Sutton by the relevant local authorities, minimising miles travelled.

"Currently this is 55,000 tonnes of material per year recycled into valuable products that would otherwise be destined for landfill and this figure will rise to 95,000 tonnes over the next 18 months. Positive contribution to the reduction of CO2 and methane emission is therefore inherent with savings made in two ways, reducing landfill and methane emissions and reducing the use of peat.

"The in-vessel process - as opposed to traditional outdoor or open windrow composting - means that with the contents protected from the elements, the naturally produced heat can be regulated  as can the moisture content, to produce a thoroughly consistent, thoroughly sanitised and stable product with no risk of contamination, odour or leaching. The maturation sheds, where product matures and is graded ready for commercial sale, are similarly under cover and protected from the elements and from external contamination.

"This means that as the product has been composted to PAS 100 standards to kill weed seeds the product remain sanitised as opposed to product composted outdoors. Temperature, moisture and air content are monitored and adjusted automatically by a sophisticated computer controlled system, designed by Vital Earth personnel, resulting in the optimum product with the minimum of resources.  The nature of Vital Earth's business is intrinsic to its environmental achievements and vice versa.  Specifically, the company's attainment of EN ISO 9001:2000 and BS EN ISO 14001:2004, the worldwide benchmarks for quality and environmental management was an important marker in 2008.  With only around five per cent of UK businesses holding these certificates, Vital Earth is at the forefront in terms of the environment. 

"Development of additional environmental policies includes an investigation into placing a biomass boiler on site for the production of all the company's energy requirements by 2010, company cars to operate at a rate below band C in terms of carbon emissions by 2010, constant carbon reduction from current measured levels to carbon neutrality by 2012, UK sourcing, wherever possible and daily monitoring and minimisation of noise and light outputs.

"Gardeners have to be convinced that green credentials, even fantastic ones, mean no sacrifice in terms of growing, flowering and cropping and Vital Earth has gone to great lengths to ensure that its range is not only laboratory tested, but also extensively trialled with commercial growers to prove its performance, its stability for storage and its ease of use.  

"We have now gone further. In launching its 2008/09 range, the idea has been to create a practical one stop shop for green gardeners, to make selecting the right product very easy and to provide education and information as to how to use the products to ensure the optimum performance. There are ten completely new products, including the first ever peat-free ericaceous compost, specialist vegetable, houseplant and aquatic composts, and a wide variety of new pack sizes from 60 litres to handy 10 litres.

"The Vital Earth range is now the most credible and comprehensive ‘green' offer in the compost, growing media and fertilisers market. It's the result of major investment in development, production and sales and marketing and is indicative of Vital Earth's passionate commitment to the environmentally-kind agenda. This is not only because we believe it is the only right-thinking stance to take in today's world, but also because we know it represents the commercial future of the garden market.   We are not yet perfect, but we are setting out to prove that real honesty and real action - rather than hypocrisy and cynicism - will ensure the commercial success that proves that the environmental agenda is the right agenda for all of us in the industry to follow."

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