Why is Earthly Legacy Non-profit?

Teresa Russell, the founder of Earthly Legacy, was initially interested in the environmental sustainability of human composting through reduced carbon emissions and transforming bodies into life-giving soil that could regenerate degraded land. 

However, having read the 102-page 2021 report from UTS’ Institute for Sustainable Futures: Pathways towards sustainable burial and cremation options for NSW, prepared for Cemeteries and Crematoria NSW, Teresa noted that the single biggest challenge to the industry making [voluntary] changes to its processes and practices to become more sustainable, is that the sector is ‘sales-focussed’ and ‘profit driven’ with ‘consumers who are particularly vulnerable and disempowered’ who ‘choose cremation because it is the cheaper of the two options presented in NSW at present’, and ‘not because it is particularly aligned with their values or preferences’. The report also noted that ‘current regulation in NSW perpetuates the inertia’ and that big operators that ‘control a huge proportion of the market in NSW have direct incentives to maintain the status quo’.

When Teresa’s mother died in early 2023, she was shocked at the cost of her mum’s funeral (which was covered by a funeral bond) and thought, ‘What do the poor people do?’ She found out that for those who cannot afford the cost of a funeral, the only option is to relinquish their loved-one’s body to the state for a Destitute Person’s cremation or burial or fall into ‘funeral poverty’, a term she’d never heard.

With 33% of Australians having no emergency savings and 40% having less than $1,000 saved, it is no surprise that the term ‘funeral poverty’ is now in our lexicon.

According to The Cost of Death 2.0 Report, 2023, around 33% of Australians over 50 years who have paid for a funeral experienced some financial hardship due to the costs incurred. Of those, 66% stated that it took months to recover financially.

To correct this injustice and to provide equity for those in the lowest socioeconomic brackets, Teresa founded Earthly Legacy as a non-profit organisation that would charge a fair price for human composting to those who can afford it and direct all profits and donated funds to compost financially disadvantaged people, thereby increasing Earthly Legacy’s social and environmental impact.