What Is a True Green Burial? | Canada Green Burial

You've spent a lifetime trying to leave the earth a little better than you found it. You've composted, reduced, chosen carefully. It makes sense that when you think about what happens after you're gone, you'd want that same care to follow you. Green burial makes that possible — but the term gets used so loosely that it's worth understanding exactly what it means before you start making plans.

The short answer is this: a true green burial is the return of a body to the earth with as little interference as possible. No embalming chemicals. No concrete vault. No steel casket. Just a body — yours, or someone you love — wrapped in a natural shroud or laid in a simple container, placed directly into the ground, and left to become part of the land around it.

It is, in many ways, the oldest form of burial in human history. And it is only in the last century or so — with the rise of the funeral industry, embalming practices, and sealed metal caskets — that we moved away from it.

The Four Things That Make It Green

When burial professionals and ecologists talk about genuine green burial, they mean something specific. There are four elements that define it:

No EmbalmingThe body is not treated with formaldehyde or other preservative chemicals. Embalming is a largely North American practice with no health benefit; it simply delays decomposition. True green burial skips it entirely.

No Concrete Vault or Grave LinerMost conventional North American cemeteries require a concrete vault around the casket to prevent the ground from settling. Vaults are purely logistical — they have nothing to do with the deceased. Green burial skips the vault and lets the body return directly to the soil.

A Simple, Biodegradable Container (or No Container)A plain unfinished wood casket, a wicker or woven willow coffin, or — in its most elemental form — a burial shroud. No lacquered hardwood, no sealed metal, nothing that will resist the earth for decades.

A Living LandscapeThe grave is restored with native plants, wildflowers, or trees — not mown grass, not headstones, not marble. The burial site becomes part of the living ecosystem rather than a maintained monument.

All four together constitute a true green burial. A cemetery that offers biodegradable caskets but still requires a vault is not offering green burial. A cemetery that skips embalming but plants the grave in mown grass is offering something, but not quite this.

What It Is Not

The term "green burial" has been borrowed by a number of services and products that don't quite qualify. Cardboard caskets in a conventional cemetery with a concrete vault. "Natural" coffins that are sold as an add-on to an otherwise conventional funeral. Woodland burials in the UK that would be called green burial here but involve a degree of site management not typical of the Canadian model.

The test is simple: can the body reach the soil directly, without a vault, and decompose naturally?

If the answer is yes — and if the land is being managed to support the ecosystem rather than just to look tidy — you are dealing with a genuine green burial site.

Why People Choose It

Some people choose green burial primarily for environmental reasons. A conventional burial involves significant amounts of concrete, steel, lacquered wood, and embalming chemicals — none of which have any ecological benefit. Green burial eliminates all of that.

Others are drawn to it for reasons that are harder to articulate. There is something in the directness of it — the body returned to the earth without barriers, without preservation, without the elaborate architecture of the conventional funeral industry — that resonates deeply for people who have thought carefully about mortality.

Some families find the simplicity itself meaningful. No complicated arrangements. No industrial process. A grave that looks like the land around it, marked simply or not at all.

Is It Legal in Canada?

Yes, everywhere. Burial practices in Canada are regulated provincially, and while the rules vary slightly from province to province, there is no province in which green burial — including shroud burial with no casket — is prohibited. What varies is how easy it is to find a cemetery that will accommodate it.

That is the real challenge in Canada. Green burial is legal everywhere. Cemeteries that truly offer it are still rare.

How to Find a True Green Burial Site

The directory on this site lists every Canadian cemetery we have been able to verify as offering genuine natural burial — sites that accept direct earth burial in a shroud or simple biodegradable container, with no concrete vault required. Every listing has been independently researched.

If you are evaluating a site that is not on this list, the questions to ask are straightforward: Is embalming required? Is a vault or grave liner required? What are the container requirements? How is the site maintained? The answers will tell you quickly whether you are dealing with genuine green burial or something that borrows the name.