 Image Source: Pexels When a loved one passes, it is certainly natural to go through a period of mourning. However, after attending to an eco-friendly burial, it’s worth considering how you can move forward in honoring the memory of your loved one who has passed. Many people are embracing a ‘celebration of life’ as an event that focuses on joyful memories rather than the pain of loss. This isn’t about ignoring the difficult emotions surrounding death. Finding meaningful ways to celebrate life can boost your mental health during the grieving process. You get to spend time with others, sharing precious memories about the joy the departed brought to the world. You’ll explore not how much you lose from their absence but what you continue to gain from the time you spent together. This can improve your perspectives on the situation and give you a mood boost at this challenging time. It can be even more impactful to find ways to celebrate life that are more environmentally sustainable. It’s not just an ethical responsibility, but it also ensures your tribute to your lost loved one is holistically positive. Let’s look at some tips to hosting a sustainable celebration of life. Consider Your VenueYour choice of venue isn’t just an opportunity to select a location that best reflects the life person whose life you’re celebrating. It can also make a significant difference in how thoughtfully sustainable the event can be. Instead of simply booking a space for your celebration, it’s worth considering areas you already have access to. A family home, particularly with a backyard can be a great choice. It also gives you full control over the energy used and the recyclable decorations you implement. Importantly, this approach can be more meaningful as there can be a more intimate and family-oriented atmosphere. If you’re working with a local, green burial ground, they may offer options for hosting a celebration of life on site as well. For a list of GBC certified locations in your area, you can visit https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/cemeteries.html. Embrace Sustainable Creativity Creating art is a wonderful way to bring memorialization and release to those in mourning. An interactive and sustainable idea to help invitees express emotion is to set out an area with paints made from natural earth, air-drying clay, and recycled paper. If children are attending, perhaps provide organic eco-crayons made from plant-based waxes. Encourage attendees to get together and create tributes to your departed loved one or create a sculpture that embodies what this person represented in life. Identify Green Memorial Elements Eco-friendly Art Table In most cases, a celebration of life event will occur after the green burial has been completed. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the most meaningful part of the process is over. Many people find it comforting to include a memorial element in the celebration of life. In some ways, this provides a focal point for the event, around which other aspects are scheduled around. Plant a Tree An increasingly popular form of sustainable memorialization at the moment is planting trees or plants. This may be a single tree specifically dedicated to your loved one, or the placing of seeds by all attendees. This is often most sustainable when performed in a public space, such as a forest, where the flora can continue to support a wider ecosystem for generations to come. Be mindful to plant native greenery that doesn’t represent an invasive species. If you’re looking for something more intimate, planting foliage or a vegetable patch in the family home can also be meaningful, especially if your loved one particularly enjoyed tending their flowers or growing their crops. This is an opportunity for all attendees to meaningfully connect and honor the memory in an impactful and healing manner. And the process can be made more sustainable by choosing local plants and flowers that attract pollinators. Remember Self-Care Preparing and planning a celebration of life can be a challenging and overwhelming time. Ensure you’re seeking the proper support you need to get through heavy waves of emotion that may occur with the loss of a loved one. Seek out a grief support group or Death Cafe in your area if you are feeling isolated and need to find like-minded individuals who can relate to the feelings you are experiencing. About the Author Sam Bowman is freelance writer and environmental advocate who enjoys getting to utilize the internet for community without actually having to leave his house. In his spare time he likes running, reading, and combining the two in a run to his local bookstore.  Image Source: Unsplash When the end of a loved one’s life approaches, difficult decisions must be made. From choosing the right palliative and hospice care teams to selecting a body disposition plan, your priority is to make your loved one feel at ease in their final days. However, end-of-life care, when not performed with sustainability in mind, can produce a large amount of medical waste, travel costs, and other harsh emissions.
If you want your loved one to be remembered for their positive impact, there’s no better way to make their time on earth even more beautiful than by making eco-friendly choices that benefit the entire world. In this article, we’ll explore four ways you can choose revolutionary end-of-life care decisions to help your loved one make a measurable difference. Choose Green Body Disposition Plan Traditional body disposition plans can be incredibly harmful to the environment. Caskets and embalming spread toxic chemicals into the earth, while the cremation process creates pollutants that harm the atmosphere. However, there are plenty of sustainable ways to lay your loved one to rest that are rising in popularity. These alternative body disposition plans include:
While it can be difficult to think about burials while your loved one is still alive, taking this step can help you ensure they’re honored in a sustainable and respectful way. Work alongside them to develop a green burial plan, one step at a time. Reduce Your Carbon Footprint for Travel As a caretaker or as a loved one who’s lending a helping hand, you need to travel to and from medical appointments on a regular basis. Even when you’re not headed to a medical office, you’re probably visiting your loved one frequently. While all the travel you do may be necessary and worth every second, it can take a huge toll on your carbon footprint. If you want to reduce your carbon emissions while still checking off your travel responsibilities, consider investing in an eco-friendly vehicle or a car with high fuel efficiency. Getting a car warranty and taking your vehicle in for regular maintenance can greatly extend the life of your car, which leads to less waste. When you’re not traveling with your patient, use more sustainable modes of transportation like light rail, biking, or even walking to reduce your footprint. Opt for Aging in Place Aging in place and home-based care are vital for making palliative care more comfortable for the patient while keeping in mind one’s carbon footprint. When your loved one can get the medical support they need right in your home (or their home), it eliminates much of the travel for both of you and prevents you from using excessive single-use medical supplies and energy in hospitals. Plus, it can be much more comfortable for your loved one to spend the final days of their life at home when you transition into hospice care. However, if you’re caring for someone who is approaching the end of their life, it’s important to make sure your home truly accommodates their needs. Consider making DIY modifications to your home — like adding wheelchair ramps or grab bars for toilets — that allow them to be as independent or comfortable as possible. These additions can help your loved one live sustainably outside of a hospital or assisted living home. Offer Sustainable End-of-Life Care Caring for someone who is nearing the end of their life is always a difficult process. However, creating a plan together can help your loved one feel in control of their life path you can make their final days more meaningful. End-of-life care also involves creating a burial plan. If you want to lay your loved one to rest respectfully and sustainably, consider options like casket-free and embalming-free burials that offer a special, sustainable way for your loved one to be remembered while avoiding releasing toxic chemicals into the earth. You can find more sustainable body disposition ideas on the Green Burial Council blog. About the Author Sam Bowman is freelance writer and environmental advocate who enjoys getting to utilize the internet for community without actually having to leave his house. In his spare time he likes running, reading, and combining the two in a run to his local bookstore.  Image Source: Unsplash Many people love their home so much that they choose to stay in that one place until death – or even after. The idea of a backyard burial is both old and new and can provide a cost saving alternative to a standard burial. It’s also typically more eco-friendly than getting buried in a traditional cemetery.
However, being buried in your backyard or somewhere nearby isn’t always as easy as one may think. Even though it’s your property, some states and communities have laws in place that may prevent a backyard burial. If you’re interested in a backyard burial, here are the basics of a backyard burial that you should know. Is It Legal? Home burials are technically legal in every state except:
In California, someone can be fined up to $10,000 for a home burial and end up getting charged with a misdemeanor. However, even if your state isn’t on that list, there might be other regulations in place that make it tricky to go through with a backyard burial. From a localized standpoint, your community might have zoning rules in place when it comes to where individuals can be buried. For example, some states require burial plots to be a certain distance from bodies of water or other buildings and roads. As a result, if you live in a tight neighborhood, it’s almost impossible to legally do a backyard burial. The easiest way to determine if going through with a backyard burial at your home is legal is to contact your local city commissioner and look at zoning laws. If you truly want to get buried in your backyard, knowing different state and local laws might impact where you choose to live. Making that decision now will make it easier to age in place later, so you can comfortably stay in your home and develop a care plan rather than getting older in a nursing home or other facility. An Eco-Friendly Burial Option While going through with a “green” burial probably isn’t the first reason you want to be buried in your backyard, it should be taken into consideration. Many people are choosing to forego the traditional coffin and burial methods to give something back to the planet after they die. So much so, that 70% of cemeteries across the country have seen an increase in demand for “green funerals.” What does that look like? How can being buried in your backyard be a more eco-friendly option? If you’re willing to give up the idea of being buried in a heavy coffin and the use of preservation chemicals, there are plenty of green options that can help your body give back to the planet. Some of the most common include
It can take some time to plan for a green burial, so it’s important to make sure your loved ones are on the same page. Talk to the people closest to you about the environmental benefits that are important to you and consider options that will help you cut back on your carbon footprint that others can put into action. Researching and hiring a green funeral director in your area can make it easier to ensure your family follows through with your wishes, even in a time of grief. Alternative Options Maybe you don’t necessarily want to get buried in your backyard but a familiar spot nearby. It’s not uncommon for people to fall in love with locations. If there’s a tranquil wooded area near your home or a stream you like to walk to every day, it’s normal to want to get buried there and feel a sense of peace. However, that requires even more legalities to deal with and paperwork to fill out. Most states aren’t going to let you dig up land that isn’t yours – even if it’s public property. However, because green and personalized burials are becoming more common, there are more natural burial sites throughout the U.S. than you might realize. For example, there are currently ten Green Burial Council-certified conservation burial grounds as well as 278 hybrid cemeteries, 60 natural cemeteries, and 20 conservation burial sites in the U.S. and Canada. They forbid the use of heavy machinery and native plants and may use native plants and trees are used as memorials. There are many more memorial forests, which allow you to be buried among the trees in certain designated locations. Most cemetery laws are outdated, as major regulations started in the 1800s. Now that people are shifting behaviors and changing the way they want to be buried, it’s time to look at those laws for the sake of each individual’s wishes, and the environment. In the meantime, if you truly want to get buried in your backyard, make sure you live in a state and community that allows it, and use these tips to make planning and preparing easier on yourself and your loved ones. About the Author Sam Bowman is freelance writer and environmental advocate who enjoys getting to utilize the internet for community without actually having to leave his house. In his spare time he likes running, reading, and combining the two in a run to his local bookstore.  Baldwin Hill Conservation Cemetery Conservation burial is the most environmentally stringent of the Green Burial Council’s burial ground standards. In addition to meeting all standards required of hybrid and natural burial grounds, conservation burial requires the following requirements:
Fortunately, there are already people doing this kind of work. Land trusts are nonprofit organizations that protect land through conservation easements, or deed restrictions that remove certain rights from the property while keeping it in the owner’s hands. For example, a conservation easement might prevent the construction of buildings and ensure that the natural character of the land is protected through annual monitoring and stewardship by the land trust. So what are the benefits for both parties? By partnering with a land trust, conservation burial grounds not only meet the requirements of certification from the GBC, but they have access to expertise and knowledge of land management and ecology. For land trusts, conservation burials are a novel approach to conservation that has the potential to be financially self-sustaining and beneficial to natural and human communities. Although conservation burial poses a unique set of challenges outside the normal land trust responsibilities, some land trusts view it as an opportunity to connect with people and be at the forefront of an increasingly popular consumer choice for after death care. Here’s where it gets exciting. For the first time ever, land trusts are creating their own conservation burial grounds! Recently, two land trusts (Casper Creek Natural Cemetery and Baldwin Hill Conservation Cemetery) have created their own conservation burial grounds. In a time of climate crisis, novel conservation tools such as conservation burial are essential to re-thinking our way of life, and death. While other forms of green burial are considered environmental through avoided costs, such as preventing the use of nonbiodegradable materials, conservation burial goes the extra step and takes on additional responsibilities of actively caring for the surrounding environment as well. About the Author Kate Berdan is a member of the Green Burial Council's 501(C)(6) Board of Directors. She lives in the Adirondack Mountains in New York where she manages nature preserves for The Nature Conservancy. Kate studied the potential of conservation burial grounds as conservation tools for land trusts during her dual Master's degree program at the University of Vermont and Vermont Law School.  Prepared by the Green Burial Council's board of directors for distribution on 3/22/22.
The Green Burial Council's mission is to inspire and advocate for environmentally sustainable, natural death care through education and certification. We aim to hold our product providers to the highest standards and expect them to treat all descendants with respect, and engender trust between members of the deathcare community. The Tree of Life Ovum Fungi met enough of our Burial Container Standards Evaluation criteria to pass with a 2 of 3 Leaf rating. This certification looks at the materials and methods used to produce a product and evaluates to what degree they were harvested sustainably, will biodegrade anaerobically, are non-toxic to fabricators and nature, and impact the warming of our planet. That being said, the messaging around this product has made additional claims as to how the product works and should be used that were not approved by The Green Burial Council, and are not consistent with our mission. We have requested information to support the claims around the impact of living mycelium and suspended our certification for the Ovum Fungi until further review. We also recognize that our product certification process can be improved to ensure that all providers align with our mission and represent the mission and values of the GBC. We have convened a standards committee to review our processes and will be creating a scientific advisory panel to ensure the best standards and practices are used during certifications. It’s an exciting time in the death industry, as new disposition methods and burial containers are becoming available. It is with the best intention that we must create new methods of how we can review these products ethically and effectively, if at all. Thank you for your patience as we challenge our own review processes.  Written by Tamsin Ramone & Alyssa Wormald for the Green Burial Council. Read more about the authors at the end of this article.
The Green Burial Council was founded to help educate people who are interested in gentle end-of-life options. When researching burial alternatives and cremation, here are some things to consider. Cremation has a reputation of being eco-friendly, because before natural burial came along, it was the most eco-friendly alternative to conventional burial. While there is evidence that it does cause harm to the environment, it is sometimes the most suitable option when considering personal and family circumstances. Oftentimes cremation is the least expensive burial option. It is also a sentimental way to memorialize a loved one and keep them close to you. Cremation continues to gain popularity for many reasons. In 2018, the Cremation Society stated that in Australia nearly 70% of people chose cremation for their final send off. With the ecological issues surrounding conventional burials becoming more well known, many people are choosing cremation because they believe it is the more environmentally conscious option. Here are some facts to consider when choosing between cremation, a standard coffin burial or a natural burial.  Written by Miranda Booher for the Green Burial Council. Read more about the author at the end of this article.
There comes a time in every pet owner’s life when you realize your furry friend doesn’t have much time left. They grow slower on their walks, develop age-related conditions, and don’t seem to enjoy life as much as they used to when they were a pup. It’s difficult enough to process the grief of losing your pet. But then having to plan a funeral on top of that can feel like it’s too much to bear. To help ease the burden you’re carrying, we’ve put together a list of five green ways you can say a final goodbye to your dog while also being conscious of the environment. 1. Create a homemade nose print grave marker Instead of purchasing a gravestone for your dog, think about creating a nose print grave marker at home. You can make one from mostly natural, sustainable materials and can be sure their final resting spot will never be forgotten.  Ariel Leath
Back in 2008, Pete McQuillin and his wife Nancy Chubb had a conversation familiar to many of us. They discussed their end of life wishes, speaking candidly about their desires for a simple return to the Earth -- a green burial. Neither of them realized it at the time, but in expressing this desire, they tipped the first domino toward creating a community that forever changed the green burial landscape. Pete died unexpectedly on January 8th, 2022 and his burial matched his original desires exactly. This comes as no surprise, seeing as he dedicated the last 14 years of his life to building and operating Penn Forest Natural Burial Park, Western Pennsylvania’s first and only exclusively green cemetery, certified by the Green Burial Council. “Pete’s death has made me reflect a lot, especially on that initial conversation” said Nancy on a snowy January day, nearly a week after Pete’s burial. “When we had that talk, it set the course for the rest of his life. We were burying him in this cemetery that didn’t exist yet.” Our Last Best Act: Planning for the End of our Lives to Protect the People and Places We Love1/12/2022
 Mallory McDuff
Author, Our Last Best Act: Planning for the End of our Lives to Protect the People and Places We Love After his sudden death in 2005, my father had a natural burial in his neighborhood cemetery—although I’d never heard the phrase “green burial” at the time. When I was growing up, my dad built the prototype of a pine casket, the size of his palm, and my mother kept her jewelry in it. “I want a funeral that relies on family and friends,” he often said, reminding us that embalming wasn’t required by any state. “The contract for the cemetery down the road doesn’t require vaults,” he said. When my mother was killed in a biking accident in 2003, my father reviewed his directives with his grown children during a vibrant spring with azaleas in full bloom. We agreed to do everything on his list—his bluegrass band at the gravesite and shovels so young and old could fill the grave. But I didn’t think we’d have to enact his plan anytime soon: He was in the best shape of his life at 62. Yet my mom had died at 58, a hiker and cyclist like him.  Caitlyn Hauke, PhD
President Board of Directors Green Burial Council International On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Green Burial Council International, I am excited to introduce John Niedfeldt-Thomas, who joined us in June as Chief Association Executive (CAE). As many of you know, the Green Burial Council (GBC) is composed of two nonprofit entities. Both are governed by volunteer boards of directors and are very much “working boards.” Together, along with many other volunteers, we work to advance the movement toward more sustainable burial practices, and support those who are actively engaged in green burial activities. |
Call for EntriesWe welcome original content with unique perspectives for the GBC Blog, preferably not previously published. The views and opinions expressed on the GBC Blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the GBC. Send entries to sabrina@greenburialcouncil.org Archives
March 2023
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