Rita Feldmann is not your average florist. A second-generation flower lover turned botanist, science writer and activist; she’s on a mission to transform the $50 billion global floristry industry, starting with the silent pollutant hiding in plain sight: floral foam.
Rita has always had flowers in her life. Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, she was surrounded by blooms as her parents pioneered the first roadside flower stand in 1973. Some of her earliest memories are tied to the family’s bohemian beginnings, selling flowers from the back of a horse and cart and tending to small crops of chrysanthemums at their Dandenong Ranges home. The smell of freshly pinched-out chrysanthemum tips remains one of Rita’s most cherished childhood recollections.
Her journey into floristry began early, helping her mother service flower accounts for Melbourne’s luxury hotels. In the 1980s, flower budgets were extravagant, and by the age of 13, Rita had her first regular after-school job crafting 130 wired buttonholes weekly for a hotel client. Her passion for flowers deepened with time, leading to a science degree focused on botany, and later, graduate studies in science journalism. Balancing her work in the family’s Prahran shop with freelance writing for health and medical industry associations, Rita honed a unique perspective blending floristry and environmental science.
By 2006, Rita embraced the wedding and events industry, strategically building relationships with high-end venues across Melbourne’s wine country. Her business flourished for over a decade, fuelled by her creativity, skill, and impeccable timing during the wedding boom and internet revolution.
In 2016, after more than a decade creating dreamy wedding arrangements, Rita could no longer ignore the waste produced by the brief events. Disturbed by the lack of transparency and regulation, Rita began digging into floral foams’ impacts and as such became among the first to advocate about the potential harmful impacts of plastic floral foam.
The material, she argues, is potentially even worse an environmental challenge than micro beads in cosmetics in terms of its far-reaching implications for ecosystems, marine life, and human health. And just like with microbeads, she says the only way to address this global issue is through a collective effort from governments, industries, and individuals alike.
Despite this, she discovered microplastic-producing floral foam has been escaping oversight for 50 years, along with carbon footprint concerns with flowers flown thousands of kilometres with no country-of-origin labels, and a global market that prizes appearance over ethics.
“Later I was to learn that one wedding I did added five tonnes of carbon emissions,” she recalls. “We’d burned through the couple’s entire annual 2030 carbon budget under the Paris Agreement just in the roses.”
So she took action.
By 2017, Rita’s scientific curiosity led her to launch the #nofloralfoam campaign on Instagram. Her posts promoted foam-free techniques while exposing the harmful impacts of microplastics on ecosystems. The hashtag gained viral popularity, transforming her campaign into a movement.
Rita’s advocacy didn’t stop with social media. In 2019, she established the Sustainable Floristry Network (SFN), an education platform dedicated to empowering florists to adopt nature-positive practices. Building momentum during the pandemic, Rita deepened her research and collaborated with the UK-based Sustainable Flowers Research Project to develop SFN’s first course, Foundation in Sustainable Floristry. By 2023, alongside co-author Ginger Briggs, she unveiled this program, combining her lifetime of floristry expertise with the science of sustainability.
At the heart of Sustainable Floristry Network (SFN) – a global education and advocacy platform that’s become the go-to resource for florists ready to embrace a nature-positive, zero-waste approach – is Flowers 2030, an education program that has attracted florists from 11 countries.
But industry education isn’t enough. “Change won’t happen without consumer demand,” she says. That’s why she’s preparing to launch The Good Flowers Project – a campaign designed to help everyday buyers choose sustainable blooms and connect ESG-minded brands with SFN-trained florists. Backed by 2023 Agrifutures Woman of the Year Nikki Davey, the campaign aims to go live by Valentine’s Day.
With half a million website hits and 80,000 social followers, SFN is gaining momentum..
“We want floristry to go back to what it does best and that’s celebrating nature,” says Rita. “But to do that, we need a revolution. And it starts with each of us.”
Rita Feldmann and SFN team members Ginger Briggs and Sandy Coull are among the six finalist teams in the 2025 Hatch: Taronga Accelerator Program, a 14-week initiative supporting eco-startups with mentorship, workshops, and funding opportunities. The program culminates in a pitch event at Taronga Zoo Sydney, where teams present their initiatives to a panel of experts.
The Hatch program, developed by the Taronga Conservation Society Australia, aims to inspire and launch innovative ideas addressing pressing environmental and conservation challenges. Participants receive $2,000 in seed funding, with the opportunity to secure additional grants, including a $50,000 major funding award.
The SFN team’s participation in the Hatch program shows their commitment to driving sustainable change in the floristry industry, and we are delighted to support them here on The Carousel.