TEAM DEATH: Natural Legacy End of Life Services

Collection
Design Strategy (MBA) | Design Division

Course
Spring 2015Sustainability StudioMichael SammetDSMBA-604-2A
Final project
Student(s)
Neha Brahmwar, Julie Grant, Lamin Mansaray
Description
Natural Legacy provides sustainable, customized, meaningful death planning and commemoration.

Traditional funeral practices in the U.S. are not sustainable. They are designed to interrupt the natural process of death and decomposition. Traditional burials involve filling the body with synthetic preservatives and encasing them in wood or steel coffins that are then buried in concrete vaults. Instead of utilizing space for the living, thousands of acres of land are used every year for new cemetery grounds to house the dead.

Each year 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid are used to preserve remains. An average embalming requires a minimum of three gallons of embalming solution. This fluid eventually seeps into our groundwater supplies. 1.6 million tons of concrete is produced each year for burial vaults. Production of concrete is responsible for 5% of the global CO2 footprint. 90,000 tons of steel is used each year for caskets. Steel is one of the most expensive metals to produce in terms of carbon footprint and toxicity (high cost to extract, refine, manufacture). Casket manufacturers are on the EPA’s list of top 50 hazardous material waste producers, primarily as a result of the toxic finishes they apply to their metal caskets. Buried metal caskets will never be reused or recycled. Wood caskets are responsible for the felling of 30 million board feet of wood (mainly tropical and hardwoods). Offsetting the CO2 emissions from the funeral industry EACH YEAR would require half a million acres of forest. Cremation is less damaging, but still far from sustainable - the incineration process emits many noxious substances including dioxin, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide and climate-changing carbon dioxide. 250,000 tons of CO2 emissions are generated annually from cremations. Each cremation burns 28 gals of fuel and produces 540 lbs of CO2. Cremations are the 3rd largest contributor of airborne mercury contamination (from cremated dental fillings). Approximately 1 million acres of land in the U.S. is being used for cemeteries. Conventional cemeteries generally require large amounts of water, pesticides, and weed killers.
 
Natural Legacy End of Life Services addresses and solves for the environmental impacts of current burial and cremation services by suggesting natural burial that promises a kind of ‘ecological immortality’ which reflects commitment to collective stewardship of the planet and responsibility for the well-being of future generations. In a natural burial, the body is buried in a shroud of natural materials or a decomposable container, such as a wicker coffin or pine box. At natural burial grounds and hybrid burial grounds, the burial location may be marked with an engraving on natural fieldstone or quarried stone, though conservation burial grounds, where the natural integrity of the land is preserved in its absolute, do not allow permanent markers. Instead, conservation burial sites use a GPS system to locate gravesites, thusly protecting the land in its natural state, while at the same time providing a source of revenue. We propose partnerships with conservation burial sites that are permanently maintained by the conservation organization and kept in perpetuity as a "conservation easement," or land permanently preserved in its natural state.

Connection with the natural process of death also provides many social benefits as well as environmental. Natural Legacy provides a multi touchpoint platform for the end user to customize their own or their loved ones last wishes around commemoration, remembrance and burial services in the most informed and sustainable way. We believe that the greatest opportunity for social impact is done by bringing about a meaningful change in the behavioral response of individuals and how they relate to their understanding of the process of death. Our service empowers users to maximize the social value that can be derived from an improved death preparation experience. We believe that our clients will find that they are able to have much more control over their costs during the process by signing up for our service. Our service also enables the broader community to generate positive externalities from a shift in people's understanding, perception, and desire for a more sustainable death process.

Links to resources


Details