Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Our project reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and other pollutants, from funerals.
Funerals pollute. They are the source of GHG (our 2012 analysis of cremations in Barcelona estimated 116-145kg of CO2 per cremation), but also of dioxins, mercury and other metals deriving from prostheses and implants (we calculate 320g per cadaver). The floral arrangements are often imported or transported over great distances, often by air, in chilled compartments, thus contributing to GHG emissions, and then there is the funeral cort√®ge ‚ still largely petrol or diesel vehicles‚Ä¶ And that is before we add in the impact of the family and friends, travelling by car or plane.
We analysed the funeral business in Spain in 2012, and set up Ecofuneral in the same year, a project to promote sustainable funerals. Terra developed a quality label for funerals, SFE 07:02. We simplified SFE 07:02 into 9 Principles (https://www.ecofuneral.es/principios-para-celebrar-un-ecofuneral, in Spanish) and persuaded one of Spain‚ largest funeral insurance companies, DKV, and Spain‚ largest funeral service company, M mora, to offer funerals compliant with these Principles ‚ Ecofunerals.

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Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

Our ecofuneral.es website attracts Spanish speakers from around the world, many living in countries where the climate emergency is more acute, and mitigation measures weaker than in Europe or the US. In 2021, 44,985 unique users of ecofuneral.es were from Mexico, 29,000 from Colombia and almost 17,000 from Argentina. The Hispanic population of the US represent around 3% of unique users (but see our plans for scale, below) on the site. As you will know (see amongst others, https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/fact-sheet/latinos-in-the-u-s-fact-sheet/), US Latinos are more likely to live in poverty; one in five Latinos, versus one in eight in the US population as a whole.

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