Westrelay Orchids located in Carpinteria California is making changes to increase eco friendly growing and reduce their impact on the environment. Westerlay also announced future plans to increase sustainability and efficiency through additional solar panels; energy curtains; and offsetting emissions.
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Westerlay Orchids Ups its Green-Growing Flower Power
Debra Herrick, Coastal View Floral April 27, 2022
Carpinteria’s Westerlay Orchids has recently made significant changes to its operations and facilities to increase its eco-friendly flower-growing potential and decrease its impact on the environment, the business announced.
Ahead of Earth Day, Westerlay’s president, Toine Overgaag, has led the installation of over 560 solar voltaic cells to the orchid company’s facilities. Westerlay expects these solar voltaic cells to generate 320 kWh per year of electricity at its Via Real location and provide 100% of all electrical needs for the facility.
Westerlay also announced future plans to increase sustainability and efficiency through additional solar panels; energy curtains; and offsetting emissions.
Working with Greenhouse System, Westerlay is replacing and insulating energy curtains in over 650,000 square feet of greenhouses. This is estimated to save 55,000 therms (British Therma Units/Btu) of natural gas used for heating.
Through Carbon Footprint Ltd., Westerlay plans to offset carbon emissions by 2,399 tCo2 through direct financial support to construct a wind power facility in Tamil Nadu, India. Since 2019, Westerlay has worked with Carbon Footprint, a third-party verification service, to measure carbon emissions and determine the company’s strategy for reduction.
“We benchmark ourselves against thousands of other horticultural companies worldwide, and this allows us to compare fertilizer, water, fossil fuel and pesticide use to our peers,” Overgaag said. “In the subset of orchid growers, we are graded at the head of the class for all categories and have achieved an ‘A’ for every year we have been part of (the program.”
In 2018, Westerlay installed 300,000 square feet of irrigation and a water recycling catch system that reduced water use by 38%. In addition to conserving water, the irrigation system also reduced natural gas consumption. Channeling the water enables a drier environment in the greenhouse and requires less heating to maintain temperature and humidity, reducing its natural gas consumption by 11%, the carbon footprint equivalent of taking 29 cars off the road. For 2023, Westerlay is looking to add another 300,000 sq ft of drain system.
