Environmentally friendly funerals are a significant trend in the funeral industry. Any visit to a trade fair will demonstrate to you that suppliers have all kinds of ideas for reducing the environmental impact of funerals.
The network’s official casket supplier, Magog Caskets, has developed five models of eco-friendly caskets in collaboration with wooden casket manufacturers. The features of the ecological caskets are that they are made entirely of wood from FSC-certified forests, with non-toxic glue, natural interior fabrics, and a natural wax or linseed oil finish. Two of these five models are manufactured by Concept Caskets in Quebec. The other three are made by the New England Casket Company in Boston, Massachusetts.
These five caskets are now certified by the Green Burial Council (GBC), a non-profit organization which promotes ecologically sustainable funerals. The GBC has set up a certification program intended among others for funeral companies that offer eco-friendly funeral services. This program is also offered to suppliers that offer funeral products which meet various environmental protection standards.
We invite you to visit the GBC website to learn more about this organization: www.greenburialcouncil.org.
To discover the five models of ecological caskets, you can visit the Magog Caskets website at: http://www.magogcaskets.com/product/mat/BOIS/cat/Ecological.html.
One American and one Canadian funeral cooperative certified by the GBC
Good news! Two of the network’s funeral cooperatives are now certified by the GBC. They are the People’s Memorial Funeral Cooperative in Seattle, USA, and the Résidence funéraire de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue in Quebec. These two cooperatives thus join the ranks of 250 North American funeral companies in 41 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces which have been certified by the GBC since it began operations in 2005. The Abitibi-Témiscamingue funeral cooperative is the first funeral company in Quebec to obtain this certification.