The Great Big Green Week, running from 6th to 14th June 2026, is the UK’s largest celebration of community action to tackle climate change and protect nature. And if there is one sector that truly understands the relationship between life, death and the earth beneath our feet, it’s ours. Funeral businesses can get involved in a variety of ways this week, which we will outline in this blog.
Organised by The Climate Coalition, the Great Big Green Week brings together communities across the UK for a week of events, conversations and practical actions. Last year, 1.2 million people took part. This year, the ambition is 2 million, and natural burial grounds and green funeral businesses have a genuinely unique role to play. Anyone who cares about creating a healthier, fairer, greener future is invited, and that includes every funeral director, woodland burial ground, celebrant and eco-coffin maker reading this.
Why the death care sector belongs at the heart of this week
Natural burial grounds are places where life returns to the earth. Every meadow grave, every woodland plot and every seed-paper shroud represents a quiet but profound act of environmental care. During Great Big Green Week, we have the chance to make that visible, to show the public, local decision-makers and policymakers that sustainable end-of-life choices are part of the same movement that plants community orchards, runs repair cafes and campaigns for cleaner rivers.
The theme for 2026 is Together for Good – a recognition that collective community action creates real, lasting benefit for local places, for nature and for our shared future. Natural burial, at its heart, is exactly that. A decision that ripples beyond a single family, restoring habitat, sequestering carbon and leaving something beautiful behind.
Photo by DEAD GOOD on Unsplash
Ideas for getting involved
Whether you manage a few acres of wildflower meadow or run a small independent funeral business, there are plenty of ways to take part.
For natural burial grounds
Open your gates and host a guided walk or dawn chorus morning. Let the community experience the living landscape you are stewarding. Invite local volunteers for a wildflower planting day. Partner with a local wildlife group for pond dipping, hedgerow laying or a bat walk at dusk. And if you have not already, consider inviting your local MP or councillor to visit. Show them what green burial can offer communities and local green infrastructure plans.
For funeral businesses
Host a death cafe with a green twist: open conversation about death alongside discussion of ecological choices such as shrouds, eco-coffins and the carbon footprint of funerals. Or bring together a funeral director, a celebrant and a burial ground manager for an evening talk or panel discussion. If you have a shopfront or premises, a window display or small exhibition telling the story of natural burial can be beautiful, informative and accessible to passers-by all week.
Online and on social media
Share the story of your burial ground or business across the week. What wildlife have you spotted recently? What makes your approach genuinely sustainable? Post a short video or reel explaining the carbon benefits of natural burial. Use the #GreatBigGreenWeek hashtag to connect with the wider national movement. Write a blog post, speak at a local school or library, or partner with a community group to contribute resources.
Photo by DEAD GOOD on Unsplash
How to register your event
Registering an event is free and straightforward. Head to greatbiggreenweek.com/get_involved to list your event on the national map. This means local people can find you, and your contribution gets counted as part of the wider national movement, helping to demonstrate to politicians the breadth and depth of community action on climate and nature.
Events of any size count. A private wildflower walk for 12 people matters just as much as a public festival. The point is to make collective action visible.
Photo by DEAD GOOD on Unsplash
A moment to be seen
The green funeral sector often works quietly and beautifully, outside the mainstream spotlight. Great Big Green Week is a rare opportunity to step forward, to say that the decisions families make at the end of life are environmental decisions too and that they matter.
When a family chooses a wildflower meadow burial, they are choosing habitat restoration. When they choose a wicker coffin or a linen shroud, they are choosing to return to the earth with care. These are not niche choices. They are part of the same story the climate movement is telling, and this June, we have every reason to tell it loudly, warmly and together.
We hope to see natural burial grounds and green funeral businesses across the UK taking part this year. If you do, we would love to hear about it. Share your events and stories with us and let’s show what this sector is made of.
Photo by DEAD GOOD on Unsplash
Ready to get involved?
Register your event on the Great Big Green Week website and join the movement this 6th to 14th June 2026.
Not yet listed in the Dying to Go Green directory? Add your burial ground or green funeral business today and reach families across the UK who are looking for exactly what you offer.