Sustainable development

Label BioSuisse: Le Jardin botanique est certifié bio

The Bio Suisse label: The Botanical Garden is certified organic

Following a two-year reconversion period, the Botanical Garden was certified organic on 1 January 2017. It took several years of studying and searching for solutions to realise this ambitious project, which is unique in French-speaking Switzerland. Today, visitors enjoy a garden that is maintained to meet Bio Suisse specifications, a major first for a public body!

What is a 100% organic garden?

Bio Suisse has been the umbrella organisation for organic farmers in this country since 1981. It owns the Bourgeon label, the one most widely recognised by Swiss consumers. There are around 6,000 farmers and growers who follow the Bio Suisse guidelines, which are among the most demanding standards in the world for organic agriculture. The Botanical Garden of Geneva qualified for this quality label after a period of what is called “reconversion” that lasted two years and a detailed inspection by the label’s experts.

What does organic mean?

To qualify for and obtain the Bio Suisse label, you have to comply with its requirements as set down in the specifications:

In concrete terms, that means working differently, not using agrochemicals and preferring instead natural fertilisers, treatments and substrates, in other words cultivating with respect for the biodiversity of the environment.

Cultivating a garden organically also means accepting that your work will be inspected by an external company and that you will be judged. This is, however, the essential tool that makes it possible to certify the quality of the 6,000 organic growers in Switzerland! The inspection takes place each year between March and September.

A triple objective: ecology – health– evolution

This project meets several objectives:

The first and most important, of course, is the ecological issue. By completely and rigorously renouncing all man-made chemicals used to maintain green spaces we show all the more respect for the ecosystem around us. Working organically means respecting the cycles of life. It means acknowledging that our resources are finite and acting accordingly on our own scale.

The second issue is that of health. Complying with organic requirements clearly improves the working conditions of the gardeners. Environmentally-friendly practices are much more favourable and supportive for human health that the conventional methods used previously.

The third objective is to bring about an evolution in the gardening profession. The Bio Suisse specifications are aimed mainly at agriculture, i.e. producing animal and vegetable foodstuffs. What the Conservatory and Botanical Garden of Geneva have done is pioneering in the sense that it applies to plant collections and public green spaces.

L’énergie verte des bâtiments

The green energy in our buildings

100% renewable energies

Since 2013 the extensive installations of the Conservatory and Botanical Garden of Geneva (CJBG) have drawn all their energy from wood (75%), solar (4%) and biogas (20%), supported by a smart heating system for the greenhouses and buildings.

Buildings

The new buildings, like the extension to the herbaria and the public reception area in the Botanic Shop (2011), meet very strict energy performance standards with double flow ventilation systems, reduced water consumption and advanced electrical equipment… The old buildings are gradually being renovated with the same aim of saving energy: the library (2014-15) and the adjacent offices (2013), the villa Le Chêne (2016) and the former conservatory at La Console, by the lake (2013-14). La Console has its own pellet-fired boiler and is not linked to the district heating network.

Heating

To replace our old system, which used to consume 250,000 litres of fuel oil, two wood-chip burners and a gas-fired back-up boiler were fitted 2010. Some of the wood comes from maintaining the parks and forests of the City of Geneva (the Parks, Gardens and Environment Department and the CJBG); the rest from privately owned forests in Geneva. Use of the boiler is optimised, thanks to a sophisticated, computer-controlled heat management system for the greenhouses that integrates the weather forecast. The gas-fired boiler is only used when it is extremely cold. The City of Geneva, of which the CJBG is a part, was the first customer to take out a 100% biogas contract with Services Industriels de Genève in 2013.

Solar panels for hot water in the bathrooms

Since 2010, 180m2 of vacuum thermal panels have provided hot water to the bathrooms in the Gardeners’ House and partly feed the heating system.

Electricity: a photoelectric centre

On the roof of the Gardeners’ House is a second central facility, photoelectric this time, covering 200m2 and producing around 25,000kwh annually; these are fed into the grid by means of the SIG-Vitale Vert offering.

Water recovery

Rain water

Underneath the greenhouse, two rainwater cisterns with a capacity of 1,000m3 allow us to irrigate our greenhouse plants with water that contains no calcium.

Lake water

The CJBG is also connected to the Geneva-Lake-Nations (GLN) heating system. The principle behind the GLN is to pipe lake water straight to companies and international organisations in the Nations district for cooling purposes by providing a network for transporting and distributing water from deep in the lake. The system can also be used to heat new buildings by installing high-performance heat pumps. The CJBG uses the circulating water going back to the lake to irrigate the plants.