Green Burial Award

The Green Burial Council Leadership Award

The Green Burial Council Leadership Award is presented to an individual, organization, or business that has demonstrated foresight, innovation, and extraordinary commitment to the environment through sustainability and attainability in the area of human death-care practices.

2024 Leadership Award

The Board of Directors of the Green Burial Council (GBC) has named Lee Webster as the recipient of the 2024 Leadership Award. In honor of Earth month, the GBC’s leadership award is presented to “an individual or organization that demonstrates foresight, innovation and extraordinary commitment to the environment in the area of human death-care practices”.

About Lee:
Lee Webster is an internationally known educator, author, and advocate for funeral reform, home funerals, and green burial. She has served in leadership positions with the National Home Funeral Alliance and Green Burial Council as President, and co-founder and board member of the Conservation Burial Alliance, and National End-of-Life Doula Alliance, and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s End-of-Life Doula Council. She is also the longtime Director of New Hampshire and Vermont Funeral Resources & Education and co-designer of the Funeral Partnership.org series of state-specific funeral resource websites.

In nominating Lee, it was said that her “full career of contributions indicates her lasting legacy.” It’s hard to argue with this when you consider her published works and continuous educational efforts. Books she has authored include: “The After-Death Care Educator Handbook” (an updated compilation of previously published work), contributions to “The Future of the Corpse: Our Changing Places and Perceptions of the Dead”, and “Changing Landscapes: Exploring the growth of ethical, compassionate, and environmentally sustainable green funeral service”. She designed the first GBC-certification course for funeral professionals and co-teaches the Green Burial Masterclass for cemetery operators. Along with the many contributions she has made to other publications are the educational programs she continues to teach in mortuary schools, universities, senior programs, and public venues.

“I can’t tell you how much it means to be recognized this way for this work,” she responded on hearing the news. “More importantly, it feels good to have been even a small part of the legacy of this great organization. The GBC demonstrates what can happen when we dedicate ourselves to advancing cultural and environmental changes around death practices. Truly grateful, thank you.”

The Green Burial Council is a nonprofit environmental certification and education organization that sets standards for natural burial in North America. Their mission is to promote the protection of worker health, reduce carbon emissions, conserve natural resources, and preserve habitat through environmentally responsible after-death practices. The GBC provides guidelines that include using certified biodegradable products and foregoing toxic chemicals and vaults during burial in approved green cemeteries throughout the US and Canada.

Past Recipients

Amy Browne, Tony Hale, Brian Wilson, and Jeremy Kaplan are co-producers of A Will for the Woods, the award-winning film that documents a man searching for a final resting place who becomes the inspiration for creating green burial space.

Mark Harris, author of Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial which spurred the green burial movement. He is a former environmental columnist with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and member of the Society of Environmental Journalists,

Suzanne Kelly, is author of Greening Death: Reclaiming Burial Practices and Restoring Our Tie to the Earth, and administrator for the Town of Rhinebeck Cemetery where they opened a natural burial ground in 2014.

Dyanne Matzkevich of PineForest Memorial Gardens in Wake Forest, North Carolina, is recognized for her work in creating green burial space for Clark Wang, the subject of the film, A Will for the Woods.

Shari Wolf is a true pioneer, educator, activist, and early adopter of eco-friendly death and after-death options. She is a funeral director and owner of Natural Grace which provides a natural approach to the funeral business.