It can feel overwhelming, but you don’t have to rush.

• At home: Call the GP or palliative care team. They’ll confirm the death and issue the necessary paperwork. If it’s unexpected, call 000.

• In hospital or aged care: Staff will guide you through the first steps.

Once that’s done, you can contact Funeral Commons. We’ll arrange transport, care, and any paperwork. You don’t need to know exactly what kind of funeral you want straight away — we’ll help you figure that out when you’re ready.

We partner with natural and conservation burial grounds. At launch, that begins with Walawaani Way on the South Coast of NSW, and we aim to connect families with more sites over time.

Yes. Families are welcome to visit. Conservation burial grounds are protected bushland, so the area remains natural, peaceful, and accessible. GPS coordinates and location info are provided after burial.

You can choose anything from no ceremony at all, through to a small, simple gathering, or something more involved. The Funeral Commons model means you only pay for what you actually want.

Absolutely. You can talk to a real person to ask questions, check details, or get guidance before making decisions.

That’s exactly what we’re offering at launch. Funeral Commons is starting with simple, eco-conscious direct burials at Walawaani Way. No pressure, no upselling — just the essentials done well.

Traditional funerals usually include a large “professional service fee” — often thousands added on top of actual costs. Families rarely get a clear breakdown of what this fee covers. On top of that, extras like chapels, hearses, embalming, and coffin mark-ups quickly push the price higher.

Funeral Commons works differently. We keep things transparent: you only pay for what you need, and our small platform fee is clear and up-front. As a social enterprise, we reinvest the majority of our profit into mental health and grief support, and to help families facing financial hardship.

Cremation isn’t available directly through Funeral Commons yet. If that’s what you’re looking for, we can connect you with trusted partners who operate as sustainably as possible. We also offer the option to offset the impact of cremation by planting trees at Walawaani Way.

If you’d like to know more, please get in touch and we can talk it through.

Conservation burials are designed to care for the environment as well as the person. They avoid embalming chemicals, synthetic materials, MDF coffins, plastics, varnishes, and concrete vaults — all of which can leach into the ground or release toxins when cremated.

Instead, the body is returned to the earth in biodegradable materials, allowing the soil to regenerate and life to be nourished in a natural cycle. Natural burial grounds are protected bushland, so your choice also directly supports conservation and land restoration.

And because every choice has a carbon impact, Funeral Commons also offers the option to offset emissions (such as from transport or cremation) through tree planting at Walawaani Way.

Not yet in Australia. Human composting (also called “natural organic reduction”) is legal in parts of the US but hasn’t been introduced here, yet. Funeral Commons actively supports this change and will add it the moment it becomes available.

If you’d like to see human composting become a legal option in NSW, you can [sign the petition here].

All care is provided by experienced funeral professionals who work with Funeral Commons. They handle transport, preparation, and paperwork with dignity and transparency.

Funeral Commons is independent — we’re not owned by the big corporate funeral chains. Families stay in control, and providers are chosen for their values, professionalism, and reviews.