Green Burial Council
Description
Contact Info
- was founded in 2005 by Joe Sehee to ensure consumers would be served by having verifiable standards for green funeral enterprises.
- develops and maintains certification standards for cemeteries, funeral homes, and product providers and all certification is conducted by independent third-party experts. Three types of cemeteries are certified by the GBC*:
- hybrid, an area within a conventional cemetery where burial occurs without a concrete vault, chemical embalming, and with a biodegradable container,
- natural, where all three elements are employed in a cemetery dedicated to natural burial, and
- conservation, where a land trust entity preserves land that is in part used for burial.
- creates, evaluates, and disseminates educational resources, including:
- blog, and newsletter,
- peer-to-peer forums
- burial stories,
- curated collection of books, articles, blogs, and videos,
- opportunities for public and professional engagement,
- outreach tools and speaker’s bureau,
- recommended readings, and
- courses about operating a green cemetery and creating green funeral services.
Our Mission, Vision, and Values
Our mission is to inspire and advocate for environmentally sustainable, natural death care through education and certification
Our vision is to ensure universal access to information and environmentally sustainable death care
Our values include:
- Respect for rituals that create meaning for both the living and the dead,
- Honor the earth and recognize the importance of caring for her in how we bury our dead,
- Honor that funeral and burial traditions and practices are sacred,
- Integrity in all aspects of our operation by holding ourselves to the highest standards,
- Sustainability both environmentally and operationally so that future generations may benefit from our work, and
- Leadership in making certifiable, sustainable death-care practices available to all.
Specialty Information
Photos
Map
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