Greening the Funeral Home

This column originally appeared in the July, 2012 issue of Funeral Home and Cemetery News by Nomis Publications, Inc.

Greening the Funeral Home
Appealing to eco-conscious families in the developing market for green funerals


In previous installments of this column we discussed green burial in the context of cemeteries and caskets.  Green cemeteries and caskets have received most of the media attention in recent years with the growing popularity of green and natural burial in America.  Another topic worth exploring but not receiving near the media attention is greening the funeral home.  Some funeral homes, like the solar powered Prout Funeral Home in Verona, New Jersey, have embraced sustainable and eco-friendly practices to garner media attention and local community support.  There is a wealth of opportunity in "greening the funeral home" that will save money and portray a funeral home as eco-conscious.

The funeral home, like any commercial property, has opportunities to improve energy efficiency.  Two decades of research in the "green building" industry tells us that the incremental cost of new construction for a green building is less than 2% with a return-on-investment more than 10 times in savings over the life of the building.  If your firm is considering expansion or new construction, it may be well-worth seeking the expertise of an architect with experience in green building.

For existing facilities, there are countless ways "go green" that save money and appeal to families who value an environmentally conscious business.  While some means to green your business require up-front investment, there are many ways to green your business with little more than a commitment from staff to follow sustainable practices.  An important first step is to make it a priority and empower your team.  While the adoption of greener practices is made possible from the bottom-up in your organization, the commitment to do so best originates from top-down leadership.

Trees sequester carbon.

As much as half the energy used in our facilities is energy lost in heating and cooling--this means zero value realized from 50 cents of every dollar spent on energy!  An easy way to reduce energy use is at the thermostat.  Each degree you turn down the heat saves 3 percent of heating costs, while each degree you raise the temperature of your air conditioner saves 3-4 percent of cooling costs.  Adjusting the thermostat by 2 degrees year-around will save 6% on the energy bill.  As for the environment, the added savings in CO2 reduction is equivalent to the carbon sequestered by as many as 400 adult living trees in the same year.  Call your local utility company for a free energy audit of your funeral home facility.  A free energy audit will expose ways reduce both energy loss and energy use.  Your auditor can also identify opportunities for tax credits or grants to pay for weatherization and other energy-saving improvements.

When planning facilities improvement projects, consider using eco-friendly replacements for carpeting, furniture, window treatments, and paint.  There are countless green alternatives made from renewable resources including cork and bamboo flooring, all-natural and hydrocarbon-free textiles, and carpet, paint and textiles that contain zero VOCs (volatile organic compounds).  Milk Paint, an alternative to oil and latex paint, contains zero VOCs and is available in a variety of colors that can be mixed for a full spectrum of color options for home decor and furniture.  Milk Paint, in fact, is a popular choice in childcare facilities, hospitals, and schools because it contains zero VOCs.

Perhaps the easiest and fastest way to green a funeral home is in lighting.  In the last two years CFL light bulbs have dramatically decreased in price and have become available in a wide variety of types of light.  The CFL bulbs available today easily replace incandescent lighting without compromising the color or quality of light.  Significant improvements in CFL light bulbs have eliminated the delay in getting to full brightness, ended the flickering, and made CLF bulbs compatible with dimmer switches.  The payback period on a CFL light bulb in a fixture used 8-12 hrs per day is 3-4 weeks.  The savings on electricity alone is enough to warrant switching out all incandescent light bulbs used more than 10 minutes per day.   Add the environmental benefit and switching to CLF light bulbs is the easiest and fastest way to green a funeral home.  Additional savings can be achieved with the use of dimmer switches, timers, and motion-sensors to reduce the energy used in lighting.

Many funeral homes provide bottled water to guests.  Bottled water is one of America's most criticized industries for its impact on the environment.  Consider switching to filtered tap water or a water cooler.  Replace disposable plastic cups with biodegradable cups made from paper or corn starch.  If your funeral home provides refreshments or food services, use biodegradable plates and tableware.  James Olson of Lippert-Olson Funeral Home in Sheboygan Wisconsin provides all products for their receptions sot that all waste including food, plates, napkins, forks/spoons, and cups are biodegradable.  All waste is deposited into the backyard compost bin without sorting.  The compost, in turn, is used in flower beds and window flower boxes around the funeral home.

Further savings can be achieved in the restroom.  Automated "touchless" faucets, flow reducers, and low-volume flush toilet fixtures reduce water consumption again saving money and reducing impact on the environment.  A programmable touchless paper towel dispenser will reduce paper waste (which can also be composted).  All of these updates have a paypack period of less than one year from savings in water and paper consumption.

Additional savings can be achieved in the funeral home office.  Switch to paperless billing for all utility and bank accounts.  Opt out of pre-screened credit card mailing lists (and compost the junk mail you do receive).  Setup your office printer for two-sided printing, use printer paper made from post-consumer recycled paper, and be sure to recycle those old toner cartridges.  Recycle (or compost) your scratch paper.  Turn off all computers at night--preferably with a power-saving power strip.

There's no end to the little things we can do to "green" a funeral home facility.  Whatever you do, take credit for your effort.  Talk to your families about the ways you are caring for the environment and greening your facility.  Put up small informative signs by that new water cooler with compostable cups, above the paper towel dispenser, or in your new waiting room decorated with bamboo flooring and walls colored with milk paint.  Most people will be interested to learn about your efforts to green your facility and will appreciate and support such measures for a healthier environment.

Farewell Grandma Esther

Today our family celebrated the life of Esther A. Caughlin who died on Monday, June 25th. Having celebrated her 92nd birthday, Esther's life was filled with the laughter and joy of a large family.  Esther's room was a reflection of her life as it was filled with many photographs, cards, and artwork from 11 grandchildren (and their spouses) and 19 great-grandchildren plus countless nieces, nephews, and friends.

Hands both large & small.

Esther had requested that she be buried in a Northwoods Casket.  As our family made Grandma's funeral arrangements, my wife Julie (a grand-daughter) had the idea to invite the family over to our Carriage House shop to decorate Grandma Esther's simple pine casket.  Several grandchildren & great-grandchildren arrived at the task with paint and brushes in hand. First we used old-fashioned milk paint to stencil flowers on the casket.  Next we encouraged everyone to add a hand-print or two with any color of their choosing for a wide variety of hand-prints both large and small.  Finally, with as many children and adults as could crowd around the casket we painted rainbows, flowers, colorful designs, and even a birthday cake.  The whole process was a very pleasant four to five hours as family made time to drop by and paint a few strokes.

I have to say the result was an impressive tribute to Grandma with so much depth in the personal touches of so many hands.  I have not experienced anything like it before.  During the visitation before Grandma's funeral, I was sitting quietly with one of Julie's cousins when we both noticed something. There were many small children at this funeral and ALL of them regularly approached the casket.  They were not afraid to stand right next to Grandma in the open casket and talk to her.  Children, ages 3 to 13 were not hesitant to put their hands on the beautiful casket or briefly touch the back of Grandma's hands.  Then we noticed her casket filling up with more and more drawings and artwork as the children shared paper, colored pencils, and crayons to create their own personalized farewell messages and artwork.  None of us have ever experienced a funeral where the children were as comfortable as they were today with Grandma Esther.   We could only believe that the hand-painted casket, now familiar to several of the great-grandchildren who helped decorate it, was welcoming and warm in a way that most of us have never experienced before--especially as children.

For our family, this act of decorating Grandma's casket may be a new trend and become a part of our healing as we learn and teach our children to deal with the inevitable passing of our loved ones.

The inside head-panel included photographs and art from the great-grandchildren. 

An owl, a rainbow, and a birthday cake!

Only the hands of family and children could have done this.

Greener Funerals with Green Caskets

This column originally appeared in the June, 2012 issue of Funeral Home and Cemetery News by Nomis Publications, Inc.


Greener Funerals with Green Caskets

Comparing caskets with carbon life cycle analysis.

Last month we discussed trends in green cemeteries in America.  Another popular topic in greening the funeral industry is green caskets.  Families seeking green alternatives often start with questions during casket selection.  In the last several years dozens of green alternatives for burial containers ranging from wood and paper caskets to cloth burial shrouds have surfaced in the market.  The green claims behind these products are as creative as the entrepreneurs marketing them.  This month we discuss carbon life cycle analysis as it applies to casket selection for a green funeral.

When comparing caskets and other creative burial containers it helps to consider three key activities that contribute to the carbon footprint of the product.  These activities include raw material extraction or production, manufacturing, and transportation.  We should consider the carbon impact, or carbon-dioxide equivalent (CO2e), for each of these three key activities in our attempt to objectively compare different green caskets and casket alternatives.

  

Before we talk about casket production, let us first illustrate the CO2e of familiar activities as we compare.  For example, burning a gallon of gasoline releases 22 lbs CO2e and a kilowatt hour of electricity produced from coal generates 2 lbs CO2e.  A typical 4-person family produces 50 tons of CO2e each year.  On the side of carbon sequestering, a typical leaf-bearing tree absorbs 1 ton of CO2 over its 100-year life.  An important observation on carbon impact and sequestration is the aspect of time.  A child learns with a weekly allowance that it takes time to save but any amount saved can be spent in no time at all.  Next, let's look at the carbon impact of raw materials, manufacturing, and transportation for different caskets.

Let us compare a green casket to a conventional 200-lb casket made from imported Chinese steel, manufactured in the US, and distributed in the Midwest.  I have not yet found a comprehensive carbon life cycle analysis on caskets, so we will use some comparisons.  Carbon life cycle analysis in the automotive industry estimates that manufacturing a 3600 lb sedan produces 18 tons CO2e, or 1000 lbs CO2e for every 100 lbs of sedan.  This includes producing raw materials like steel, fabric, plastic, metal hinges, handles, etc.  This estimate includes transporting raw materials and operating a manufacturing facility.  If we compare a sedan to a conventional steel casket with cloth interior, rubber seal, brass hinges and latch, and a painted "automotive" finish, the impact of manufacturing a steel casket, at 200 lbs, might be about 1 ton CO2e.  If we investigate more closely, we know that producing steel has a net impact of about 1/2 lb CO2e for each pound of steel--or 100 lbs CO2e for a 200-lb steel casket.  Significant research on the carbon impact of ocean cargo and freight trucking informs us that the impact of moving 200 lbs of freight from China to the Midwest is nearly 300 lbs CO2e!  With 400 lbs CO2e just to manufacture and transport the raw steel to the Midwest, our estimate to extract, produce, and transport raw materials, manufacture a steel casket, and transport to the US is probably reasonable at 1 ton CO2e for a single steel casket.

A popular category of green caskets are those woven from grasses such as willow, bamboo, and seagrass.  These grass crops are generally grown and harvested in cottage industries without the impact of industrialized equipment and manufacturing processes.  Most woven caskets are made by hand and thus have a very small carbon footprint.  At 50 lbs shipping weight woven caskets also benefit by reducing the carbon impact of transportation.  However, few of these products are made in the United States and most are imported from Indonesia, China, or Europe.  If shipped by ocean cargo to a US port and then via freight truck to the central US, the total impact of a 50 lb seagrass casket from Indonesia might be 150 lbs CO2e.  That same casket, however, shipped by air freight produces 2400 lbs CO2e--the air freight alone is more than the impact of 1 ton CO2e estimated for steel casket shipped from China by ocean liner.

A locally-made pine casket has a very small carbon impact.

Dozens of casket makers in the emerging US green market are building caskets from locally sourced and reclaimed woods.  The carbon impact to produce a board-foot of lumber varies by species and region and ranges from less than 1/2 lb CO2e for softwoods to just more than 1 lb CO2e for hardwoods.  Smaller caskets require 60 board-feet of pine while others may require 120 board-feet of hardwood making the material carbon impact range from 30 lbs CO2e for an eco-friendly pine casket to 120 lbs CO2e for a conventional oak or cherry casket.  The impact of manufacturing processes also varies widely and largely depends on the source of heat/electricity in the facility and the finishes applied to the casket.  An unfinished pine casket made in an eco-friendly facility may have as little as 20 lb CO2e whereas a commercial operation might be as high as 100 lbs CO2e for a similar product.  The greatest benefit of locally made caskets is reduced transportation.  A locally delivered casket with a light commercial truck averaging a 500 mile trip produces 15 lbs of CO2e by sharing the load with other deliveries.  The same light truck on a dedicated 100-mile trip would contribute far more--as much as 200 lbs CO2e for the round-trip.  The total impact of a locally made wood casket ranges from as little as 50 lbs CO2e but up to 250 lbs CO2e depending on the wood used, manufacturing processes, distance traveled, and method of final delivery.

In each of these example scenarios we see that transportation can be the largest factor in the carbon impact of green casket alternatives to a steel casket.  For the steel casket, due to great efficiency in ocean cargo, the dominating factor is the impact of the steel production and casket manufacturing processes.  Let's summarize the comparison of green caskets to a domestically manufactured steel casket from imported Chinese steel at 1 ton CO2e.  A woven casket shipped by ocean cargo compares at roughly 150 lbs--more than 90% less CO2e than a steel casket.  However, the same woven casket shipped by air freight exceeds 2400 lbs CO2e which is 20% more than the steel casket!  An eco-conscious casket maker using local sustainable pine compares at 50 lbs CO2e when being conservative with transportation.  A locally made pine casket may have the smallest carbon footprint comparing at 98% less impact than a steel casket and 1/3 the impact of a woven casket.  But again, if shipped single-unit on a light truck for 200 miles round-trip, the impact of the same pine casket may be as much as or exceed the 150 lbs CO2e estimated for an imported woven casket.

So what do I recommend as the "greenest" alternative in caskets?  Buy Local.  Drive Less.  And get to know your supplier by asking lots of questions.