'Give us more responsibility!'

Buddy Wijnands - Consultant Dolmans Landscaping Group

A lot of municipalities and other clients in the outdoor space ask very specific things of us green companies. Contracts often cover no more than a period of four or five years, and those contracts then describe exactly what plants we have to plant or how many times a year we have to mow the grass at what level. I think that can be done differently, better. 

In fact, with the current, delineated contracts in green space maintenance, clients think they can keep everything under better control and have more grip on management and maintenance. In my opinion, the opposite is true. 

After all, a green contractor who is responsible for a tree or shrub for only five years will most likely not take as good care of it as the same tree or shrub he will take care of for 20 years. Planting a tree is not that difficult, but for a monumental tree, the first ten years are essential.

And although we are now being asked for knowledge, expertise and experience, almost nothing is then done with it.

What I'm advocating is that clients dare to give us much more responsibility. And that means clients have to ask something different of us. 

No longer a tightly mowed or just a flowery lawn, but more biodiversity, for example. Or a shady park. Or a green business park with sufficient possibilities for water retention. For we - in turn - know very well how to achieve those goals - biodiversity, shade, water retention - and what is needed to do so. Just as Philips at Schiphol today no longer supplies lamps or fixtures, but lighting. 

And if we don't know exactly how to achieve the requested goals ourselves, we know perfectly well who to hire to provide that knowledge. In the current situation this is more difficult because we prefer not to have another party looking over our shoulder. But if a client opts for a construction team construction and just indicates the goals he wants to achieve within a certain period of time and what his budget is, then you get the best solution from the market. We as green contractors then no longer just provide the means, but are responsible for the end.

In the previous issue of Greenpro, a former classmate of mine wrote on this site about Chat GPT - artificial intelligence. Such a chatbot you can ask a very clear question with as much room for an innovative answer as possible. We could do the same with our outdoor space, couldn't we? 

Ask the market a question the same way you would ask Chat GPT. Then I think you will get very nice assignments and even nicer answers. 

Take a mowing bid: it currently involves nothing more than the number of acres with a dime price behind it. And the cheapest bidder wins. 

But what if a client were to ask market participants how they would manage the most biodiverse park possible where only electric mowing is allowed and where biodiversity increases by 30 percent over a number of years? Then I think you get much better solutions.