Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery — a 478-acre landscape of rolling hills, monumental stones, and nearly two centuries of New York City history — has announced plans to add natural organic reduction (NOR) to its suite of disposition choices through a partnership with a well-known German provider.
Green-Wood will partner with Meine Erde, a Berlin-based organization specializing in ecological death care. If that name sounds familiar, it’s most likely because Meine Erde co-founders Max Huesch and Pablo Metz have been frequent guests at TerraCon, the first and only annual NOR convention in the U.S., which is hosted by Washington-based NOR provider Return Home.
“Green-Wood continues to be a leader in cemetery operations, death education, and understanding the multifaceted role that urban green spaces play in the fight against climate change,” Meera Joshi, president of Green-Wood Cemetery said in a statement. “This new-to-the-United States partnership with Meine Erde is one more important step in Green-Wood’s evolution.”
The cemetery hopes to begin offering NOR disposition in 2027. If that materializes, this system will mark the first NOR operation in New York State and on the U.S. East Coast, although the practice is legal in the coastal states of Maine, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey.
New York governor Kathy Hochul signed NOR legislation into law on December 30, 2022 following years-long efforts by multiple state agencies. Unlike most states, New York law restricts the operation of NOR and cremation facilities exclusively to cemeteries and cemetery corporations. This legal framework was codified with amendments to the state’s Not-For-Profit Corporation Law and related Department of State regulations, which took effect in August 2024. Under these rules, only cemetery corporations — typically not-for-profit organizations with substantial land holdings — may create and operate NOR facilities, and they are subject to inspection and standards similar to crematories.
For proponents and operators, the law is a double-edged sword: it legitimatizes NOR while anchoring it firmly within the traditional cemetery infrastructure. In 2023, Return Home’s Katey Houston spoke with the Jewish Press about some of the issues associated with this regulation.
“Our model has the funeral home and natural organic reduction facility all in one. Whereas current New York law says that you have to be a cemetery to operate a natural organic reduction facility. In order to be a cemetery, you have to be a not-for-profit corporation and on at least 28 acres of land which makes it not an option for us to operate under those rules,” Houston said. “There is nowhere we could afford and buy 28 acres of land for the most part because this is an urban option.”
As the second-largest cemetery (by acreage) in New York state, historic Green-Wood is one of just a handful of properties that is eligible and equipped to offer NOR.
Green-Wood is inviting anyone who might be interested in NOR to complete an interest form as they continue to “develop the operational infrastructure” for their offering.
