The Centre for Natural Burial

The Record. Kitchener, Ont.

Funerals, like just about everything else in the 21st century, are changing to suit the tastes of the United Sates’ 78 million baby boomers.

In recent years, boomers have been delegated with the task of planning their parents’ funerals. And typical of boomers, they’re making different choices than those of their parents’ generation.

They’re overwhelmingly choosing lower-cost alternatives such as cremation and personalized funeral services to celebrate their parents’ lives.

Some are considering another type of burial that doesn’t involve a landscaped cemetery plot. They’re opting for the back-to-nature green burials that are opening up around the nation.

Their choices eschew the long- observed traditional service that included a casket, embalming, cemetery plot, hearse and a whopping price tag.

“Baby boomers want something different. They ask a lot of questions, where their parents did not. Their parents tended to go with the same funeral that Aunt Martha had or just go along with what the director recommended,” industry analyst Bill Burns said.

“Boomers have changed the dynamics of funeral services by expressing the life of the deceased. These are celebrations of a life with music and images that pay tribute to the deceased.”

The demand for cremations is a growing trend in the U.S. In 2002, 27.8 per cent of deaths were handled through cremation. They’re expected to account for more than 40 per cent of funerals by 2025.

“We’re a more mobile society today than previous generations,” Burns said. “People don’t have strong ties to a particular community or funeral home. So cremation is a more sensible alternative.”

The problem for the funeral industry is that a cremation generates only about half as much revenue as a traditional funeral: $900 to $2,500 for cremation services compared to $4,500 to $6,000 for the traditional service.

The overall trend toward simplified, less expensive funerals has shaken up an industry still struggling with heavy debt incurred by the consolidation of funeral homes in the 1990s.

Nonetheless, funeral homes across the nation have embraced the trend toward personalized funerals. Directors will scan photos of the deceased onto a disk for a Power Point presentation, create website memorials and decorate the room where the service is held to commemorate the deceased’s life.