For decades burial and cremation have been the most common options in the Australian funeral industry. However, emerging technologies are claiming to offer more sustainable alternatives, and it’s only fitting since chemicals like formaldehyde and methanol, which are used to embalm a body before burial, can leach toxins into soil and water tables. 

While cemeteries are quickly running out of room to house the dead, millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere every year by gas-powered crematoriums, with a single cremation producing over 400kg.

Greg Nicholls, the founder of cardboard casket brand Daisybox, is one of few in a largely profit-driven industry determined to see change in the burial and cremation industry.

“Nobody talks about how toxic that whole process is,” Nicholls said.

Following a request by a funeral group in 2017, Nicholls has developed a low-cost carbon casket, which has unsurprisingly, been met with high demand among Australians.

Nicholls estimates 80 per cent of the demand comes from people wanting a more affordable option, particularly as the purchase of a casket can cost thousands of dollars. An affordable burial option that is also environmentally friendly has been seen as an added bonus for many of his clients.

“We’re really democratising coffin manufacturing and letting the public know it is a choice,” said Nicholls.

On average, around a 100,000 people die every day globally. Although many Australians are engrossed by the high cost of living,the inevitable cost of what comes after, both on the environment and the hip pocket raises serious concerns amid a myriad of financial pressures amongst the aging population.

According to the government website MoneySmart, the average cost of a funeral in Australia is around $8,000, from which a significant portion of that sum goes towards purchasing the coffin.

Kate Morgan, co-founder of Tomorrow Funerals, entered into the industry after coming “face to face” with her own death following a year of “terrible health” after being diagnosed with cancer in 2021. 

“I felt like it was quite outdated,” said Morgan, who found the industry to be traditional and impersonal.

Unlike many other funeral homes, Tomorrow Funerals only offers a cardboard casket and the memorial service takes place after the cremation, eliminating the pressure to have a beautiful or elegant casket for display.

“There’s no emphasis on us selling people coffins, we give the same coffin to every single person,” Morgan said.

Tomorrow Funerals, which had chosen cardboard from a sustainability perspective, did not expect much support from customers.  However, they have been met with a high demand for cardboard caskets from people looking for more affordable and eco-friendly burial options.

While cardboard is a more biodegradable material for caskets, containing fewer toxins than standard Medium Density Fibreboards (MDF), alternative options altogether could set an even greener standard for the industry.

Practices like composting and aquamation, or ‘alkaline hydrolysis’ which dissolves the body in a water chamber, are becoming popular amongst those looking for a more environmentally sustainable mode of burial.  While methods like aquamation are recognised as alternative methods of burial in several Australian states, research suggests such methods are still too new to completely understand their environmental impacts. 

However, Morgan believes that businesses will be encouraged to offer more eco-friendly options as demand for such options continues to grow.

“Green burials are coming in and it will change…but at the moment in Victoria (where Tomorrow Funerals is based) there’s not much you can do,” Morgan said.

While some continue to advocate for alternative and eco-friendly methods of burial, Dr Hannah Gould and her team of anthropologists and researchers  from DeathTech have raised concerns of greenwashing in the burial industry.

“Mostly it is a case of private companies providing poor evidence for their claims of environmental sustainability,” Dr Gould said.

While natural burials are associated with lower energy consumption and carbon emissions, we currently lack the research and evidence to measure the environmental impacts of different modes of burial.

“I’m not yet convinced that alternative disposal options, like water cremation or recompose, are the path to sustainable deathcare,” Dr Gould said.

According to Dr Gould, 80 per cent of Australians are cremated and only switching to greener fuels would make that process more efficient and environmentally friendly.

“Many of the perceived green options in deathcare that people get excited about, like composting, do not provide the fix that is required,” she said.

Electricity-powered crematoriums, similar to ones operating across the United Kingdom and Western Europe, are one option Greg Nicholls hopes to see introduced in Australia and more countries around the world.

“They’ll change over the equipment in Australia when the current equipment comes to the end of its useful life, and not beforehand, because no one’s legislating that they’ve got to reduce emissions tomorrow,” Nicholls said.

DeathTech’s research has found people are increasingly more open to trying new and experimental technologies with a lower carbon footprint for burials. 

Nevertheless, the carbon footprint from the disposal of remains is a “tiny proportion” in comparison to the carbon emissions created during a person’s lifetime.

Dr Gould claims that government and industry-led regulatory change would be more effective in improving the industry's sustainability.

“I am weary of a neoliberal move that asks people to account for the environmental impact of their own deaths, when we could be advocating for sector-wide change,” Dr Gould said.