How We Work to "Get it Green"

There's a lot to be learned in the field of natural burial, and a huge amount of it is common sense. You can start be reading an excerpt from our forthcoming publication, "Be a Tree, the Manual for Turning Yourself into a Forest" at http://www.beatree.com

We also recommend spending some time exploring the links on our company website's sidebars and within its content, especially the sites in our Featured Resources List and the stories in the Alternative Funeral Monitor.

Thankfully, the UK's woodland burial movement has been going strong for almost 15 years, and many of the caskets offered by the Natural Burial Company are tried and tested, buried in the UK's more than 200 woodland burial sites and now offered for sale by hundreds of funeral directors around their country.

These coffins don't fall apart, they don't 'melt in the rain', and they're not undignified in any fashion. In fact, we believe that our handmade natural caskets and urns are some of the most beautiful burial options in the world and that, by respecting the earth and a natural return to our origins, we restore dignity for all those who love life and nature and want to make one last statement about that love before they "go."

IF YOU'RE A PRODUCER OR SUPPLIER:

We look for some special things when we source products. Mainly, we want items that are produced at lower scales of technology than what's currently in use in the conventional funeral business, from renewable or recycled resources, and naturally biodegradable. Since over 80% of the caskets sold in the USA right now are some variant of stamped steel (utilizing tooling and machinery from the aging auto industry), we know that means that most of our products, handmade from willow, bamboo, paper, wood, or another fiber, qualify for "greener" right off the bat!

If we sell your product, we'll want to know where it's made, who makes it, what it's made of, how many hands it passes through before it gets to us, how many miles it travels, and other things like that. If it's destined for burial, it should decompose more rapidly than a conventional burial casket. If it will go in a crematorium, it should be of all natural materials (staples and nails are ok - they can be recovered with a magnet later). We don't require certified Fair Trade status yet, but someday we might. We'll probably visit your workshop and inspect your goods - our customers want to know that WE know you!

In 2008, we'll roll out our own "premier" line of branded products that are the "best of the best" the Natural Burial Company has to offer. If you want to be a part of that brand, please be in touch with us to learn what you should do.

Our Co-op America Application

We recently applied for membership in Co-op America's Green Business Network. Here's part of our application - we thought it would be helpful to share some of our answers. If you've never been to Co-op America's Green Business directory, check it out. This link takes you to Co-Op America's Funeral Services category, btw.

1. Please describe your company’s social justice and/or environmental mission.

“To Serve a More Natural End”

When products and services help us to manage death in accordance with our personal values, a vital sense of community and self-reliance is fostered, and that spreads with good effect throughout society. To serve that end, the Natural Burial Company's biodegradable product selection and marketing services support the dignified and responsible return of human and animal remains directly to nature at the end of life.

By bringing to market biodegradable burial goods and natural burial information, we support funeral service providers who, in turn, empower families to control their end-of-life process in an increasingly natural manner.

As part of its mission to help minimize environmental and social damage done through common US funeral practice, the Natural Burial Company encourages its suppliers and peers to explore and align with the system conditions of the Natural Step Framework* and assists them in creatively doing so.

*The following is taken from: http://www.ortns.org/framework.htm

.” The Natural Step Framework holds that in a sustainable society, nature won’t be subject to systematically increasing:

1…Concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust;

2…Concentrations of substances produced by society;

3…Degradation by physical means;

And, in that society,

4…human needs are met worldwide”

2. Name your company’s top three product(s) or service(s):

1. Biodegradable caskets, urns and natural funeral products
2. Public education; information and networking resources
3. Marketing and product development services

The Natural Burial Company sources, develops, promotes and sells biodegradable burial goods - caskets, coffins, baskets, shrouds, urns - and cremation containers. We work with product makers and service providers to bring good ideas to market.

We participate in community and producer education about guidelines, products and end-of-life services that support personally empowering or environmentally sound funeral and cemetery land management practices. The NBC supports several informative websites for general education and networking including the comment-enabled weblog, the Alternative Funeral Monitor, http://www.alternativefuneralmonitor.com.

Cynthia Beal, the NBC's principal, writes and presents on the topic of natural burial.

C. Environment

1.   If an organic, biodegradable, Green Seal, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), or another certification is applicable, please attach a copy or fax to 202/822-8471.

NA for our offices at this time.

2.   What environmental considerations are reflected in the sourcing of any ingredients or products (i.e. minimum environmental criteria for vendors, pollution caused in production, preference for recycled, renewable, organic or local, etc.)?

Our mission statement refers to the Natural Step framework. Using the System Condition guidelines (and others) we seek out and help bring to market products that are an improvement over the conventional ones, are biodegradable, and would be acceptable for use in natural burial grounds or clean cremations.

We have a spectrum of values we screen for. We emphasize functional burial products that are made from recycled or renewable materials, biodegrade quickly, have lower energy inputs in production, minimal or zero toxins, diversify materials, preserve artisan skills, have an excellence of design, solve a problem creatively, and are at appropriate scale, etc.

We assist our producers in the transition from toxic to natural. One of our favorite casket makers used ordinary plywood when I first met him two years ago. I told him about formaldehyde-free plywood but he said it didn't exist. The NBC sourced it for him, got quotes, and connected him with a supplier. It turned out that the wood was actually made by his own distributor's parent company but that they'd neglected to inform some of their subsidiaries that they had it available. He now uses the formaldehyde-free wood.

We accept that, for the first few years, due to the relative newness of this concept many of our suppliers may not meet a certifiable “green” standard – indeed, those standards don't yet exist. Our suppliers are, however, some of the best we can find, and we hope that our natural marketing tent will provide them a place to gather confidently and take pride in becoming and/or remaining successful and environmentally responsible producers.

3.   How is the product or service being offered by your company environmentally preferable to others on the market (i.e., takes place of disposables, reduces emissions, recyclable or compostable, organic, etc.)?

We provide biodegradable burial products that mitigate the following US statistics:

In the US we bury AT LEAST the following every year in cemeteries:

•     * 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid
•     * 90,272 tons of steel (caskets)
•     * 2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
•     * 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
•     * 14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
•     * 30-plus million board feet of hardwoods (much tropical; caskets) *
• *Source: Mary Woodsen, Greensprings Natural Cemetery FAQ, March, 2007;

About 1% of the US population dies every year. Nationwide, 30% are cremated and 70% are buried. Of those buried, about 84% of the coffins are steel, 14% are wood or “wood-like”, and the remainder are plastic,  fiberglass or “other” Only a fraction of the wood caskets are fully biodegradable, and if they are chipboard or veneered, they have formaldehyde and other chemicals that kill soil microbes and decompose poorly. None of the conventional casket companies is openly encouraging the public to seek out cemeteries who will inter without a vault or liner.

The Natural Burial Company wants to change these trends and conditions. By sourcing, developing and offering biodegradable product alternatives, and encouraging citizens to request natural burials if they want them, we hope to help turn an entire industry around, at least for those consumers who are ready to go out differently.