Florensis Kenya Limited

The Florensis Kenya Limited (FKL) farm based in Naivasha is fully committed to gender equality and specifically women empowerment. They demonstrate this through constantly reviewing their policies and practices which aligns them with Step 1 of the Gender-Responsive Due Diligence (GRDD) process to embed GRDD into policies and practices and Step 6 of the GRDD process: Provide for remediation.

FKL’s constant revision of their internal and external policies is premised on developing a gender mainstreaming framework that addresses the needs and promotes the wellbeing of their women employees. These reviews allow the enterprise to remain accountable and to update any practices that require it. This includes the grievance mechanism, which is in line with Step 6 of the GRDD process, for which they partnered with the Women@Work campaign to ensure that the women workers can safely and anonymously report any adverse circumstances.

Actions undertaken

FKL has introduced numerous gender-responsive measures across their company and at their farms including:

  • A school feeding programme at a subsidised cost of Ksh 5 a day
  • A day care facility and early childhood development (ECD) centre.
  • Anti-Sexual Harassment policy, code of conduct, anti-harassment and violence policy, Human Resource and Employment policy, employee grievance procedures and gender committee guidelines.
  • A new breast-feeding policy that is set to enhance the already successful breast-feeding programme on the farm.

All of these policies and programmes are reviewed every two years, using gender disaggregated data to ensure that FKL stays updated with legal requirements, while also adjusting for current and future socio-economic risks.

“FKL’s constant revision of their internal and external policies is premised on developing a gender mainstreaming framework that addresses the needs and promotes the wellbeing of their women employees.”

Achievements

FKL’s gender focus and review process has resulted in:

  • More women employees at management and supervisory levels.
  • Women being remunerated fairly.
  • The day-care facility benefits an average of 57 infants annually.
  • Employees can rely on the day-care and ECD facilities that are in the company grounds to feed their children while also keeping them safe when working. These facilities host over 150 households.
  • The ECD centre provides education to an average of 79 children per school term.
  • The farm’s lactation room provides services to an average of 6 lactating women each month with time allocated during their working day to do use it.

“With the revised policies, we will be able to identify ways in which the farm can best promote gender rights within the organisation”

Florence Obonyo, Sustainability and Social Officer at Florensis Kenya Limited.

Lessons and recommendations to others

In 2019, IDH found that the Kenyan flower sector exports increased by 2.8% of the total world flower exports (€0.5M per year) through compliance with gender requirements of social and environmental standards. This shows the impact that GRDD can have on the growth and sustainability of a business. Florensis Kenya Limited is a great example of a company that is a part of this success as they demonstrate how companies can provide for remediation in a gender-responsive way.