Natural Cemetery Management - practical consultation for tomorrow's transitions

 The Natural Burial Company's Sustainable Cemetery Management Group is pleased to offer sustainable cemetery management consulting to cemeteries and funeral service providers in North America. We work with your current cemetery consultant or management to offer specialized advice on the feasibility of adding natural burial services to your site.

Our natural cemetery management team and our allied partners can offer you cost-containment strategies for groundskeeping, water, energy, labor, and equipment use.

Our practical guidelines can be applied to both existing cemeteries and new sections, and we can generate recommendations in the following areas:

     * Preliminary site review for natural interment suitability
    * Cost/Benefit assessment for natural products and techniques
    * Natural burial plot/product options
    * Vault-free burial guidelines for new and existing cemeteries
    * Restoration ecology overview
    * Sustainable landscape management
    * Marketing and best practices
    * Bereavement guidance for parks management and staff
    * Training, policy and internal standards development
    * Special understanding of a municipal cemetery's needs
    * Feasibility analysis for budget managers
    * Integrated Habitat Creation as a cemetery feature

Drawing upon the expertise of our senior technical adviser, Ken West, founder of the first city-owned UK cemetery to offer natural burial in a variety of forms (his bio is below), our UK/US team provides support to cemetery managers who want to add options in keeping with the emerging market (and governmental) demand for environmentally friendly operations. 

Our unique "sustainable business" approach helps clients address the bottom-line fiscal, operations, and bereavement components of a cemetery, as well as the unique ecological needs of any particular site. and balances restoration-ecology concepts with clear business goals, ensuring that the cemetery's operation takes into account the civic requirement that a cemetery operate on its own, in perpetuity.

Combined with the services of a good cemetery planner (we work with several), cemeteries can add new memorial options, beautify their properties, and shift techniques to more natural methods with the guidance we offer. With proper planning, they can become dynamic vital parts of a community, changing readily with the times.

The Team

Ken West - Senior Technical Adviser

A trained horticulturalist and respected cemetery and crematoria manager with 45 years experience working primarily in the municipal and public-service sectors, West devised and opened the first natural burial site in the United Kingdom for the City of Carlisle and instigated the Charter for the Bereaved. He has created natural burial programs for several city-run cemeteries in the UK, enabling them to transition to more natural techniques. He has advised the UK Government on cemetery provision and carbon footprinting, and was awarded the MBE by His Royal Highness Prince Charles in 2002 for services to burial and cremation. A past-president (1993) of Britain's Institute for Burial and Cremation (ICCFA equivalent), he is a judge for the UK's annual cemetery competition, and has contributed to the Association for Natural Burial Grounds guidelines. He has a wide range of natural burial schemes to draw from in advising clients, as well as a background in municipal parks management and bereavement services. His guidebook on natural burial will be published and available for cemetery managers to learn from in the near future. West is now retired, and remains very active in moving the natural burial movement forward in both the UK and the US. See his CV at http://natural-burial.typepad.com/NBC_docs/kenwest.cv.doc

Cynthia Beal – Product Development and Sustainability Oversight

Independent business owner for over 25 years, Beal is a strong advocate for natural burial in existing cemeteries throughout the world. She has reviewed and/or visited natural burial sites in the USA and the UK, and works closely with funeral service providers to assist their transition to natural product and alternative funeral service options. Founder of the Natural Burial Company, now a leading supplier of natural coffins from respected weavers and manufacturers in the UK, Asia, and Europe. Prior to founding the company in 2004, Beal worked in sustainable agriculture, organic foods and natural products, and alternative health education and advocacy, participating in the organic standards, awareness and certification movements from the late 80's until 2003. Beal readily shares her knowledge on natural product standards, natural burial and cleaner technology use with customers, suppliers, funeral directors, cemetery management, and the general public. She focuses strongly on existing cemetery conversion, and the incorporation of natural funeral techniques into existing funeral service provider operations. She participates in research, education and charitable programs that expand the use of, and access to, environmentally friendly end-of-life practices through her volunteer work with a new public non-profit called Natural End.

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Peter Rock – Business Analysis and Project Management

Manufacturer of the Ecopod coffin and Sales Director of the Natural Burial Company, Rock is well known within the natural burial and green cremation movement in the UK. Founder of One to One Business Support, he is an established business consultant and project manager, working with a wide rage of market sectors and businesses, including ARKA Original Funerals, one of the UK’s most respected natural funeral businesses in Brighton, UK. He has an extensive wholesale sales background, as well as a decade of University-based business development program management. Rock was a forensics technician in the UK and is not unfamiliar with the technical aspects of body management. See http://www.peterrock.co.uk and http://www.ecopod.co.uk.  Rock's project management and business development experience can help SCMG's larger clients bring focus to a highly complex project that can, with the right teamwork, become a profitable endeavor for cemetery groups that wish to convert.

Stephen Clarke - Research and Ecology

A trained civil engineer, land manager, and contract administrator with many years of experience implementing ecological restoration and management projects, mainly across the American West. Clarke specializes in applying current ecological research to landowner goals, sharing this information and developing staff to implement them effectively. Working for federal, state and local government as well as individuals, industry, trusts and non-profits has provided him with a unique insight into the challenges of making restoration work - i.e., be revenue neutral or even profitable - in the long-run.  An experienced non-profit volunteer and board member, his technical skills in research, administration, construction and restoration have regularly been put to use by local and national conservation organizations in developing their projects. Much of his recent work has focused on the links between parks/open spacedesign, savannah restoration, and fire ecology. 

The Team

Ken West - Senior Technical Adviser

A trained horticulturalist and respected cemetery and crematoria manager with 45 years experience working primarily in the municipal and public-service sectors, West devised and opened the first natural burial site in the United Kingdom for the City of Carlisle and instigated the Charter for the Bereaved. He has created natural burial programs for several city-run cemeteries in the UK, enabling them to transition to more natural techniques. He has advised the UK Government on cemetery provision and carbon footprinting, and was awarded the MBE by His Royal Highness Prince Charles in 2002 for services to burial and cremation. A past-president (1993) of Britain's Institute for Burial and Cremation (ICCFA equivalent), he is a judge for the UK's annual cemetery competition, and has contributed to the Association for Natural Burial Grounds guidelines. He has a wide range of natural burial schemes to draw from in advising clients, as well as a background in municipal parks management and bereavement services. His guidebook on natural burial will be published and available for cemetery managers to learn from in the near future. West is now retired, and remains very active in moving the natural burial movement forward in both the UK and the US. See his CV at http://natural-burial.typepad.com/NBC_docs/kenwest.cv.doc

Cynthia Beal – Product Development and Sustainability Oversight

Independent business owner for over 25 years, Beal is a strong advocate for natural burial in existing cemeteries throughout the world. She has reviewed and/or visited natural burial sites in the USA and the UK, and works closely with funeral service providers to assist their transition to natural product and alternative funeral service options. Founder of the Natural Burial Company, now a leading supplier of natural coffins from respected weavers and manufacturers in the UK, Asia, and Europe. Prior to founding the company in 2004, Beal worked in sustainable agriculture, organic foods and natural products, and alternative health education and advocacy, participating in the organic standards, awareness and certification movements from the late 80's until 2003. Beal readily shares her knowledge on natural product standards, natural burial and cleaner technology use with customers, suppliers, funeral directors, cemetery management, and the general public. She focuses strongly on existing cemetery conversion, and the incorporation of natural funeral techniques into existing funeral service provider operations. She participates in research, education and charitable programs that expand the use of, and access to, environmentally friendly end-of-life practices through her volunteer work with a new public non-profit called Natural End.

.

Peter Rock – Business Analysis and Project Management

Manufacturer of the Ecopod coffin and Sales Director of the Natural Burial Company, Rock is well known within the natural burial and green cremation movement in the UK. Founder of One to One Business Support, he is an established business consultant and project manager, working with a wide rage of market sectors and businesses, including ARKA Original Funerals, one of the UK’s most respected natural funeral businesses in Brighton, UK. He has an extensive wholesale sales background, as well as a decade of University-based business development program management. Rock was a forensics technician in the UK and is not unfamiliar with the technical aspects of body management. See http://www.peterrock.co.uk and http://www.ecopod.co.uk.  Rock's project management and business development experience can help SCMG's larger clients bring focus to a highly complex project that can, with the right teamwork, become a profitable endeavor for cemetery groups that wish to convert.

Stephen Clarke - Research and Ecology

A trained civil engineer, land manager, and contract administrator with many years of experience implementing ecological restoration and management projects, mainly across the American West. Clarke specializes in applying current ecological research to landowner goals, sharing this information and developing staff to implement them effectively. Working for federal, state and local government as well as individuals, industry, trusts and non-profits has provided him with a unique insight into the challenges of making restoration work - i.e., be revenue neutral or even profitable - in the long-run.  An experienced non-profit volunteer and board member, his technical skills in research, administration, construction and restoration have regularly been put to use by local and national conservation organizations in developing their projects. Much of his recent work has focused on the links between parks/open spacedesign, savannah restoration, and fire ecology.