Devon firm awarded Platinum Standard in green funerals

Bellacouche, a green burial micro-business in Mid Devon, has been awarded the industry’s highest

environmental standard. After 20 years of trading, founder Yuli Somme has received the top

platinum award from the Greener Globe Funeral Standard, the environmental awards for the

funeral sector. The certification follows a study by carbon consultants Planet Mark which found

that natural burial has up to eight times lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The Chagford-based green funeral business produces the Leafcocoon, a wool cocoon, also called a

burial shroud, supported by an internal wooden frame with six wood handles. There is no coffin,

minimising the use of wood, and the wool supports British Farmers and processing mills. When

combined with recycled packaging and a natural burial, the process emits just 20kg of CO2,

compared to 160kg for a wood veneer coffin packaged in bubble wrap and a gas fired cremation,

according to the Planet Mark study.

Business owner Yuli said: “I was overjoyed to receive the platinum award from the Green Globe

Funeral Standard last week. After 20 years of effort, it is fantastic that funerals, an important part

of our lives, are being recognised as an opportunity to reduce our impact on the environment.

Our wool cocoons are made from British organic wool, local wood, hedgerow hazel toggles and

up-cycled cotton straps, which makes them as ecological as you can get, and they support small

farms and local industries too.”

The Greener Globe Funeral Standard is an international sustainability audit scheme tailored for

the funeral sector, including funeral directors, their suppliers, and crematoria. Businesses that

earn this award can proudly showcase their commitment to minimising environmental impact.

GGFS Auditor Carolyn Day, said: “Yuli is truly unique and refreshing, with some fantastic answers. 

As many of our questions were for average suppliers, some of them importing from Asia, and

manufacturing in bulk, she clearly challenged the audit. Her methods and logic certainly stood up

to the test.”

Yuli uses her craft as a way of campaigning for better understanding of the impacts of funerals on

the environment. Earlier this year she presented at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, where

she proposed that if 3% of UK landowners offered an acre of land each, there would be sufficient

space for all deaths in the UK. This would result in a significant reduction in pollution from

synthetic wood coffins and cremations.

Inspired by the 17^th century ‘Burial in Woollen Act’, Yuli is on a mission to make funerals a better experience for families. This was an Act passed by Parliament 'which required the dead, except plague victims and the destitute, to be buried in pure English woollen shrouds to the exclusion of any foreign textiles'.

“My father died when I was five, his body taken away in a wooden box which to my young mind was confusing and disconnected me from any understanding of what this meant. My customers find that the tactility of soft wool helps us to connect more with the person who has died, but without any sense of squeamishness because of its cocoon-like appearance. Helping children and families understand where their deceased loved ones have gone. Whether it is for a cremation or a burial, the Leafcocoon can help us, at a difficult time, to feel more connected to our loved ones and nature; that is also better for the environment,” she said.

Bellacouche sends wool burial shrouds all over the UK and can be found at

https://www.bellacouche.com/