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, 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 forward-planning and development services of CPRA Studio, cemeteries can add new memorial options, beautify their properties, and shift techniques to more natural methods with the guidance of the NBC team. 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 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. 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 North America. 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 addition of 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, as well as the designer/producer of the US-made Caskit™, a cremation and natural burial solution, Beal readily shares her knowledge on natural burial and cremation with customers, suppliers and the general public. An experienced marketer of natural products based on sustainable agriculture methodologies and a student of the soil-web, she is also the author of ‘Be a Tree,’ to be published by New Society Publishers in 2009.

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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 also 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.

Stephen Clarke - Research and Ecology

A trained civil engineer, land manager, and contract administrator with 16 years of experience implementing ecological restoration and management projects mainly across the American West. He 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 a unique window into the challenges of making restoration work 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 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. 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 North America. 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 addition of 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, as well as the designer/producer of the US-made Caskit™, a cremation and natural burial solution, Beal readily shares her knowledge on natural burial and cremation with customers, suppliers and the general public. An experienced marketer of natural products based on sustainable agriculture methodologies and a student of the soil-web, she is also the author of ‘Be a Tree,’ to be published by New Society Publishers in 2009.

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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 also 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.

Stephen Clarke - Research and Ecology

A trained civil engineer, land manager, and contract administrator with 16 years of experience implementing ecological restoration and management projects mainly across the American West. He 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 a unique window into the challenges of making restoration work 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.