You may be wondering,
The linearity of death processes doesn’t match the circularity that sustainability demands.
Death is an inevitable part of life's circulatory systems. However, in the West, death has been made into an ecologically damaging process that doesn't utilize opportunities for sustainable practices.
Why Death?
Hunt Statement:
How can we re-imagine and redesign burial rituals and practices to be reacquainted with circularity, and utilize sustainable processes in order to minimize environmental impact and help to nurture natural systems?
Every year we bury…
Enough embalming fluid to fill 8 Olympic swimming pools
Enough metal to build The Golden Gate Bridge
Enough concrete to build a 2 lane highway from New York to Detroit
And for Cremation?
“[...] cremation significantly contributes to the emissions of pollutants in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, trace metals, and most importantly mercury”.
“[...] ashes are not compost or fertilizer and hold no nutrients for the environment. All of the useful nutrients for flora and fauna have been burned away”
What sustainable burial options currently exist?
The Green Burial Council Est. 2002
The GBC Vision
To ensure universal access to information and environmentally sustainable death care.
What is Green Burial Council?
GBC defines green burial as a way of caring for the dead with minimal environmental impact that aids in the conservation of natural resources, reduction of carbon emissions, protection of worker health, and the restoration and/or preservation of habitat.
Who provides these services?
GBC providers are cemeterians, funeral professionals, and product sellers or manufacturers who have met rigorous qualification requirements to attain certification, ensuring that the consumer will receive goods and services that further the ethical aims of our organization.
Analysis and Synthesis
Our analysis process included affinitization, journey mapping, and POEMS and AEIOU frameworks while facilitating a sensory cue with our peers.
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Key Insights
People want to be remembered authentically
Funeral Homes and the public want to learn more about sustainable options and choices
Sustainable burial process shouldn’t compromise an individual’s religious practices
The public should be educated on why traditional burial is unsustainable
The more people advocate for sustainable burial options, the funeral industry will adapt
Opportunity Space
Unsustainable funerary processes are a systemic issue, that must be address through various tactics.
To make these processes operate in circular system, there is a need to educate the public and funeral industry of sustainable options in order for them to mobilize as customers of the funerary industry, and advocate for services such as the Green Burial Council certification. This will empower existing sustainable processes, and sidestep stubborn legislation, and allow for more reassuring and sustainable funerary systems.
Ideation
After synthesis, our team continued to utilize an Eisenhower Matrix to plot various ideas that would address our opportunity space.
Our chosen idea was to rebrand the Green Burial Council to refresh their outward branding to be more approachable and representative of the benefits of their services to communities and the environment.
Conclusion
After researching existing services and stigmas around deathcare and sustainable burial practices, our group discovered that by rebranding the Green Burial Council we could initiate call to action that would begin to educate the public about sustainable death options, reduce stigma and cultural taboos, to move towards a more holistically sustainable world.