Environment | Annie Bolitho

Focus on natural burial: SLF 2016

Annie — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 04:48:31 +0000

When people come together around something that affects them deeply, and with focus and determination, a lot can be learned. What’s also great is that we can admit ignorance, listen closely to what others have to offer, and make new and sustainable connections with ideas and people.

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I need to consider this.

This was how it was at Kinship Ritual’s sustainable funerals event ‘Natural Burial’ at the Sustainable Living Festival. Many people really want natural burial as an option that’s less environmentally harmful than cremation. With natural burial the imagination comes into play, and often it’s a grave with a tree planted on top. For this event I wanted to enable a better understanding of what’s available in Melbourne and elsewhere.

Terry King from the Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, presented what was essentially a preview of a new Memorial Park being developed by Southern Metropolitan Cemetery Trust called Bunurong. This kind of preview would be provided to funeral directors as a matter of course, but not to citizens. A 21 hectare area has been set aside for natural burial. Terry is Director of Infrastructure, and showed the design concept for 80 ‘burial under tree plots’.

Brendan o’Connor is a Regional Manager at the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT). He explored the dimensions of ‘natural’, ‘green’, ‘eco’ and ‘bushland’ burial, the notion of returning land back to its original state and of the conservation strategies that might be associated with ‘bushland’ burial. GMCT offers small natural burial areas in two cemeteries, Lilydale and Healesville. However Brendan highlighted that many of the GMCT’s cemeteries have great ‘natural settings’.

Pia Interlandi spent a rich period of her life helping with the early development of Clandon Wood, a natural burial preserve in the UK. Through the founders’ work, people find at Clandon Wood the aesthetic values that most people are looking for in a natural burial. The bare landscape has been transformed, with a wetland, wildflower meadows, an orchard and a light as air pavilion.

When I put the program together I did have a moment of doubt. How would an evening go with spokespeople from cemetery trusts that are to some extent in competition with each other, and a passionate advocate? It was a great night. I enjoyed the way in which everyone got together, the thoughtfulness of participants, and the recognition of values that drive the natural burial movement.

Sustainability values apparently drive natural burial. But aesthetics matter deeply. Beyond minimising impacts I observed people looking for a psycho-spiritual relationship with the place they might be laid to rest.

Great night. Helpful and clarifying

Great event. Thought provoking.

I look forward to putting on more. Perhaps exploring a social justice imperative? Some participants felt strongly that being obliged to subscribe to formulaic, costly and elaborate funerals does not respect or support many people’s economic and social needs. Interesting.

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Future cemetery

Annie — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 05:38:20 +0000

In my role on the Greater Metropolitan Cemetery Trust community advisory committee, I now hear the term ‘future cemetery’ used quite frequently. Until recently they relied on the tried and true patterns or ideas about what a cemetery is. Right now, there are now many reasons to refresh that model:

Summer mowing at Templestowe cemetery, Vic

Why the future cemetery?

Changing consumer expectations, for example for natural burial, shroud burial and green cemetery practices such as use of trees as grave markers
Increasing pressure on urban space. Cemeteries occupy large tracts of land in areas that are under increasing land use pressure. Sure some people use them for recreation and walking the dog, but what might new and innovative uses of cemetery spaces look like?
Climate change. Much of the landscaping to be found in Australian cemeteries is based around lawns and rose gardens. These are highly unsuitable in climate extremes. The maintenance cost of lawns is astronomical.
Increasingly diverse populations. While Australian cemeteries have traditionally been designed with Anglo Australian values in mind, future cemeteries need to reflect the values of a multi-cultural society.

All good, but how do those who run cemeteries learn what their users want? It’s increasingly important that Trusts have community engagement plans (the GMCT has one under development). The community advisory committee plays a strong role in providing advice. The GMCT is currently seeking new members with appropriate skills for this committee. There is room for more linkages with local governments. And if you have feedback or a perspective on the Future Cemetery to offer, it’s worth getting in touch.

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Sustainable coffin case study at the Sustainable Living Festival

Annie — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 04:01:30 +0000

The Funeral event in the 2015 Sustainable Living Festival (SLF). Can I say it was like a party? You don’t know who’s going to make it. Low grade anxiety. It’s a hot night. You’ve done your best with watermelon and snacks and cold bubbly water. The venue host (Jay of Nest Co-Working) helps out. Maybe it will be alright.

And then they arrive. Great people who may not have much in common. But they all want to know:

How much sustainability can there be in a Melbourne funeral?

Some are quite optimistic about sustainability. Everyone recognises the challenges.

Thanks to Johann Drea (2007)

My goal is to give the social aspect of sustainability more of a look in. How can anyone, at the time of a death, do what has to be done without that help. Community. Friends. How much headspace does a family have even to compare price offers by different funeral companies, let alone to assess how green a coffin is?

But here we have the time. We take the coffin as a case study.

Here’s a waste pyramid. Check out the least favoured option. Think about how many coffins go up in smoke or six feet under.

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Thanks to drstuey

What’s is the most sustainable coffin option?

Small groups come to different conclusions.

Well, at first we thought the recycled coffin was the natural choice. But then I thought, I couldn’t take up that option without having quite a big conversation with my family.

We liked the pine coffin, but really we have to think about pine plantations, and where the timber comes from. Perhaps recycled timber?

We had to agree to forget the cardboard coffin. Produced in China, the worker conditions, air and water pollution put them out of the running.

This was just the start. Why be buried in a coffin at all when you could go in a shroud?

Questions questions questions

Everyone wants more information about sustainability in Melbourne. What is the sustainability performance of Melbourne’s crematoria? Why lawn cemeteries? When will there be a dedicated green burial option?

Are we going to talk about the vigil, asks one participant. More on the SLF event in my next blog.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

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Memorials in favourite places

Annie — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 07:48:07 +0000

I recently spent time at Brunswick Heads, a little NSW town with beachside streets, and a wonderful breakwater. Bruns for short.

Bruns is a place people are fond of. and you see that in memorials placed at ground and eye level.

A few memorials

At the gate of the school, this reminder of ‘a friend to our school’.

On the breakwater. Who wouldn’t want to be remembered like this?

Tom’s special place.

And crossing on the way to the health food shop. A garden ‘Gillian’s Island’. Perhaps Gillian is contemporary, perhaps she’s passed on?

What’s your view? Do memorials enhance the public space or not? If you think they do, what makes them a worthwhile element in your view?

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Co-design for sustainable funeral

Annie — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 07:35:00 +0000

Thursday night’s Sustainable Living Festival event at Hub Melbourne showed lots of people want new funeral options. So we tried co-designing a low impact, sustainable funeral. First up, sustainability principles of inter-generational equity and environmental, social and economic domains. Everyone’s sharing and learning at SLF. Environmental values had drawn them to the event. Hang on! we have to consider the important social and economic dimensions of sustainability in a funeral. No one wants to go broke from one for a start.

Some sustainable values that people identified as no-brainers for the sustainable funeral included:

locally sourced products
plain, paintable coffin (that social dimension, get people together around decorating the coffin)
benefits of rapidly disintegrating materials such as shrouds
garden or bush flowers
re-usable coffins (not everyone’s cup of tea)
travel arrangements that avoid multiple car transportation
low impact body storage

There were various statutory barriers that participants wanted to explore such as: regulatory constraints that might hamper the introduction of resumation, a water based compost process and policy or legislative constraints that hamper development of conservation and green burial.

For those interested in these options here’s good youTube footage starting (FF to 21.00) from Energy Now.

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Co-design. And sustainable funerals at SLF again!

Annie — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 07:39:07 +0000

‘Co-design that Sustainable Funeral!‘ Coming up on Thursday 13th February! This event builds on last year’s successful SLF event on Funeral Options. great opportunity to nut out what sustainable might mean in this context.

You’ve spent your life treading lightly because you care for the environment, but have you given any thought to the impact of your death?

What’s going to be sustainable and sustaining at the end of life? Let’s co-design it.

Green and eco concerns are now driving new products and messages in the funeral industry here and overseas. But do you know what your options actually are? Have you considered trade offs between the social economic and environmental dimensions of a sustainable funeral?

Join me for a lively Sustainable Living Festival Event

13th February, 5.30-7.30pm
Hub Melbourne, Level 5, 673 Bourke Street, Melbourne (Train to Southern Cross Station, Route 86 or 96 to Southern Cross)

Refreshments by gold coin donation.

To get in on the down to earth and ashes discussion, register soon!

Look forward to seeing you there!

If you’d like to find out what transpired, check out the way co-design identified shortfalls with some coffins.

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