West Midlands funeral director to offer low emissions coffins

Ian Hazel Funerals of Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham has partnered with LifeArt Coffins in a bid to reduce the environmental impact of cremations.

LifeArt coffins claim to produce up to 87% less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional chipboard coffins and require up to 80% fewer trees to make.

Cremation remains the most popular form of funeral with more than 480,000 people cremated in the UK in 2018.

One of the pollutants in cremations is nitrogen oxides, a collection of gases which have a global warming impact many times that of carbon dioxide and are linked to poor air quality in towns and cities.

A typical cremation using a chipboard coffin reportedly emits more nitrogen oxides during the 75-minute process than driving a car from Land’s End to John O’Groats and back.

Ian Hazel, MD, Ian Hazel Funerals said: “You can’t escape the fact that the environment has risen to the top of the global agenda. More and more families are asking us about our eco-coffin range so we wanted to provide as much choice as possible.Up to now, wicker and cardboard have been seen as the main options when it comes to environmentally-friendly coffins.

“With LifeArt, we’re able to provide our families with a traditional wood finish or a personalisable coffin that causes only a fraction of the pollution from MDF or Particleboard coffins. Hopefully, this will help the funeral profession to do its bit to tackle the climate emergency.”

Simon Rothwell, CEO, LifeArt added: “It’s great that Ian has started offering LifeArt coffins to his clients. Our partnership is an excellent fit for our business, as he’s well-known in the funeral profession for investing a significant amount of money in solar power, rainwater catchment and energy saving measures.

“LifeArt coffins are made from fibreboard. Tests commissioned on our products in the UK and globally show that from production through to cremation their greenhouse gas emissions are 87% lower. What’s more our coffins are designed to be affordable, in order to ensure everyone is able to reduce their final footprint for the benefit of surviving generations.”