Sep. 13—ROCHESTER — The generation known for challenging social norms and traditions is dying to change another industry.
Green burials are becoming more in demand as baby boomers plan their deaths. Industry leaders worry proposed legislation might make the option more difficult for Minnesotans to choose.
Green burials avoid embalming, use biodegradable materials in burial, and forego concrete vaults.
“I think a lot of it is led by Baby Boomers,” said Deah Kinion, a Rochester certified end-of-life doula and co-founder of the Southeast Minnesota Threshold Network. The group helps lead, plan and educate people about home vigils, green burials and other areas of natural and environmentally friendly death practices.
“A lot of us are environmentalists,” Kinion said. “We want to make a difference; we want to do something for the earth when we leave our final footprint.”
One of Kinion’s goals is to establish a green burial cemetery in Rochester or convince existing cemeteries to allow green burials.
“People who want a green burial go to the (Twin) Cities,” Kinion said.
When Colin and Anna Maxon took over Mahn Family Funeral Home’s Rochester location in January 2025, they changed more than the name of the business. What was a casket showroom at Maxon Family Cremation and Life Celebrations is now extended reception space for gatherings.
The move was less about space and more about responding to customer needs. Few people opt for traditional funerals in which the body is embalmed, dressed and displayed in an open, metal casket for a church-based service.
“We want to be more of a community space,” said Colin Maxon. “We want to be open to acknowledging there are other ways to express and experience loss and grief.”
Scott Mueller, owner and director at Mueller Memorial in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, has been a funeral director since 1980. He said that at that time, about 99% of the funerals he oversaw were traditional. Today, in Minnesota, the majority of people who die are cremated, according to the Minnesota Association of Cemeteries. Traditional, open-casket funerals make up about 20% of Mueller’s business, he said.
It’s a sign of a shift in cultural priorities, Mueller said. Fewer people are affiliated with religion and people are embracing environmental awareness.
“I think a funeral should reflect our lifestyle and should reflect what’s important in life,” Mueller said. “It represents my choice, it is important to me having an impact on the environment. If I can express that through my death, that’s important to me.”
That includes burial and internment options. Mueller has overseen dozens of green burials. Although Maxon hasn’t had a service at a green cemetery yet, he said he wants to provide that option for people who ask for it.
Green cemeteries have been a topic that has caught the attention of lawmakers in recent years.
Matt Connell thought he found a perfect spot for final resting spots for environmentally conscious people and people with religious practices calling for natural burial in Carlton County. However, neighboring property owners objected and went to their local leaders and legislators to try to block the project.
It wasn’t the first time Connell had tried to establish a natural burial site. His plan to revive a Whitewater Falls Cemetery in Winona County in the Whitewater Wildlife Management Area was met with resistance by the county attorney’s office and the Department of Natural Resources. Connell filed for adverse possession of the 1867 cemetery in early 2021.
Winona County Attorney Karin Sonneman issued a cease-and-desist letter and ordered Connell’s filing blocked while DNR officials blocked use of the cemetery parking lot in June 2021. Connell maintained he was within his rights but ultimately abandoned the plan rather than fight with local officials.
The pushback to the planned green burial site in Carlton County prompted lawmakers to put a moratorium on natural burial cemeteries in order for the Minnesota Health Department to study the environmental and health impacts of green burials and human composting.
However, Mueller said those effects have long been documented.
“As long as people have walked this earth, we’ve had green burials,” Mueller said. “Every cemetery around here, until the 1940s, has green burials.”
Lawmakers ultimately lifted the moratorium last year, but discussions have continued on the subject.
In 2025, lawmakers in the Minnesota House and Senate directed the Minnesota Department of Health to study impacts of green burials and natural organic reduction. Based on the department’s report, lawmakers in both chambers drafted new legislation for new green cemeteries. Both Minnesota House and Senate versions of legislation restrict green cemeteries to 300 burials per acre and limit the proximity of green cemeteries to bodies of water — 98.5 feet in the House version and 100 feet in the Senate version. The proposed legislation, introduced in each chamber in March, never made it to a vote on either floor.
However, for cemeteries to make money and pay to maintain the grounds, they need to fill the grounds. Capping the density of green burial grounds at almost a quarter of traditional burials sites stunts the revenue potential, experts say.
“Nobody is going to pursue that because there isn’t going to be enough acreage or enough revenue to justify that,” Mueller said.
Maxon said he understands people might have environmental and health concerns about green burials. However, it’s an old practice to bury loved ones without metal caskets and concrete vaults even if green burial is a new term.
“We’ve done it forever,” Maxon said. “In the past that’s what they were, so it’s not a new concept.”
Maxon said he wants to understand justifications for the restrictions on green burial sites.
“If this is an option that can’t be added in certain places, it needs to come from a place where there’s been due diligence, good reasoning and data to back that up,” he said. “If there’s not data that backs it up, then (green burials) should be an option for a family to choose.”
Maxon said businesses in the funeral industry might not want to see changes. Funeral homes and cemeteries don’t sell caskets and concrete vaults for a green burial.
“Those are the two biggest costs when a family chooses to do a traditional funeral,” Maxon said. “So I think there might be some industry protection that’s going on because that’s a lot of money going away.”
Kinion makes a point to talk openly about considering death. Her car has a bumper sticker that reads, “Ask me about your mortality.”
“You’ve got to have these conversations,” Kinion said.
In addition to bringing death into open conversation, Kinion openly advocates for green burials and other green death practices. In addition to lessening environmental impacts, it’s cheaper to not pay for embalming, cremation or for metal and/or wood caskets along with a concrete vault.
Those practices also require making faster arrangements for burial and memorials. The Minnesota Health Department requires all bodies to be embalmed or cremated within 72 hours. There are some exceptions to the law, including for funeral facilities that have coolers, which are allowed to store bodies for up to six days. Both Maxon’s and Mueller’s facilities have coolers.
However, Minnesota has few green burial cemeteries. Mueller works with two cemeteries in the Twin Cities area. Resurrection Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, has had a platted green burial section since 2019. The section features no individual markers, no grooming of the grounds, and features native plants. Graves there are dug by hand. Roselawn Cemetery, in Roseville, Minnesota, is a hybrid cemetery and allows green burials in some sections for an extra maintenance fee.
Mueller said green burials are more intimate. They’re held outdoors and the body is placed in a biodegradable casket or shroud of the family’s choosing. The casket or shroud is made from natural materials, such as linen, wood, seagrass, or willow, which will break down over time.
“You don’t directly see the body, but you certainly see the outline,” Mueller said. “There’s no doubt as to what’s there.”
The body is buried directly in the earth, ideally without the use of a concrete or metal vault, depending on the cemetery’s policies.
It’s a sight that Anne Archbold, funeral celebrant and death educator at Land Conservation and Natural Burial Minnesota, recalls vividly. Her partner’s mother was buried in the Resurrection Cemetery in June 2023.
“When you hear the first thud of dirt go onto the body or the casket, it’s so visceral,” Archbold said. “It’s a reminder that, yeah, we are all a part of the earth.”
Along with lifting the moratorium on green cemeteries, the Legislature passed a measure in 2024 allowing human composting. As of July 1, 2025, Minnesota is the 11th state to legalize the process, called natural organic reduction. Natural organic reduction is a contained process that transforms a body into soil through accelerated biological decomposition.
As of Sept. 3, no facility is yet operating nor has anyone applied for a permit for natural organic reduction.
Mueller has had nine families opt for the process. Each time, staff from Mueller Memorial accompanies the remains out of state and returns with the soil. For the ninth and most recent burial, Mueller took the trip to see the process for himself for the first time.
“It was really quite moving,” he said.
If facilities begin operation in the state, natural organic reduction could become a more affordable and environmentally friendly option to cremation, Mueller said.
“People think cremation is green, but it’s definitely not,” he said, noting the amount of BTUs that are needed to convert a human body to ash.
The final product is also not as environmentally friendly, said Archbold.
“We’re too salty,” she said of the body composition turned into ashes. “Trees don’t want them and it’s not good for the soil.”
Alkaline hydrolysis, known as water cremation, takes less energy. Mayo Clinic uses it to tend to most bodies that have been donated for research. It’s more expensive and there are fewer facilities that perform alkaline hydrolysis.
There are also some public health concerns about waste water and chemicals from alkaline hydrolysis, which go to public wastewater treatment plants.
The green burial legislation that was introduced, but not voted on, in 2025 may return in the next session. However, even if it passes in 2026, it may not be the final word on the topic. As Maxon noted, eventually public demand may shift enough that even if the proposed restrictions are put in place, they may not stay for long.
“We try to accommodate what people are wanting,” he said.
If what people want are more simple, green options, the industry and eventually laws will change.
“That barrier is going to break at some point,” Maxon said.