Meeting the Future Challenges of the Green Industry

The years leading up to the Great Recession were good ones. The green industry showed signs of strength and stability, much of it fueled by a booming housing market. Overall economic contributions in 2007 were estimated to be $175.26 billion. Then came the crash. Nursery and greenhouse growers who experienced remarkable growth in sales and profits for most of the decade prior to the recession now face stagnant demand, with prospective landscape and garden center buyers willing to purchase product only if and when it’s needed. Maintaining enough liquidity to handle daily operations is a key industry challenge. The decline in industry sales, accompanied by increased expenses to maintain nursery and greenhouse products, have combined to reduce firm-level cash reserves and forced many growers, landscape service providers, and retailers to attempt to source additional credit from lenders or suppliers.

I still have reason to believe that the most successful grower, landscape, and retail firms in 2015 will be those that are well-positioned with their customers in the marketplace; not overleveraged; and clearly articulating their value proposition. Conversely, those that aren’t probably won’t be around much longer. We will likely see continued structural changes across the industry supply chain as we morph into the more compact and efficient industry of the next decade. This will not only mean fewer key players in the industry but deeper, more strategic relationships among those left from the transition. The green industry in the next decade will not look the same; not even close. Yes, the industry will still be around—if it maintains value, relevance and authenticity to end consumers—but the factors that will guarantee success in the future are going to change. Better brand management, more detailed SKU movement and replenishment analysis, greater efficiency in distribution and logistics, closer integration of genetic innovations and supply levels with consumer demand, and the assimilation of innovative marketing technologies (social media and otherwise) are the new key success factors of the future. Given that, extension educators will need to be cognizant of these issues and develop educational programming to properly address them utilizing intensive pedagogical formats that go deeper with selective firms and worrying less about being all things to all clientele.