A Swedish undertaker -- that has caused a small revolution in the funeral business with its ecological burials -- has nicked the top position at Google ahead of Ikea and Volvo.

“From dust ye have risen, to dust ye shall return, but for real. That's what we do”, says Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, biologist and founder of Promessa Organic, the company that has caused a small revolution in the funeral business.

We meet up with her in her greenhouse on the tiny island of Nösund on the Swedish west coast. It was here where she first started to develop the idea of an ecological burial.

“It's very quiet and calm out here, it makes you ponder. And in the greenhouse I worked with soil every day and I started to think about how the human body also could become soil after death”, she says.    

There are several reasons for why a dead body cannot decompose and really return to earth with the traditional burial. The main problem is that the human body is too big. Secondly it's protected by a non-decomposing coffin and additionally it's most often buried on a depth where there is no life. Instead of becoming soil the remains therefore affect the subsoil water. With cremation there is also an environmental problem when gases and metals are released into the air.

“We all build our bodies with products derived from earth but when we die we don't return to soil.  This implies a great imbalance”, Susanne says. 

Having worked with plants and composting for 30 years Susanne had quite a clear idea of how a ecological burial could be done and in 2001, after experimenting in a lab that she borrowed from one of Sweden's major companies in the food industry, she presented the new way of burial.

"Some think that the most natural thing would be to just put the body in a simple coffin and dig it underground, but that doesn't really work", she explains.

Susanne's method is some what different. In order for the body to really break down and become one with earth she and her team freeze the corpse by submerging it into liquid nitrogen which makes the body very fragile. Then they vibrate the remains to transform it into an organic powder which is put into a vacuum chamber where the water is evaporated. Metals from medical surgey and mercury are then removed from the dry powder which is put in a coffin made of corn starch. Buried in a shallow grave it takes 6-12 months for the coffin and the remains to become compost.   

However, even though the ecological burial has several environmental advantages, the idea was first met with scepticism.

“The first time I mentioned that I would like to be composted when I die was 20 years ago on a working lunch. My colleagues just laughed and said that you simply couldn't say that. Their reaction some what made me keep the idea to myself for several years”.

Even after she worked out a functional method in the food company lab there was still some resistance within the funeral business. And in addition it took several years to get approval from the Swedish authorities, which just recently included the ecological burial as a new form of interment. That is the reason for why the building of the first facility has been postponed several times, but Susanne hopes to open the very first one in Jönköping next year.

“There is really a great need for this kind of burial and a lot of people from all around the world have been interested”, she says and ads that Promessa is one of the most searched Swedish company names on Internet.

In fact, if you google “Swedish company” Promessa is on top of the list that appear, ahead of Ikea, Volvo and other famous Swedish brands.  

And with the big interest outside of Sweden expansion to other countries is soon to come as well. Right now Susanne is working with licenses in ten other countries, among them South Korea where they've already ordered ten facilities but have expressed the will to build 100 in total.

“And we haven't even tried to influence people and promoting the method. Any way our biggest problem will be to cope with those who are interested”, she says.  

Later Susanne shows me the garden next to her house. She explains how she sees the future burial ground more as a park, where trees and plants grow, nurtured by the remains of the dead. She points at a big rhododendron in the garden and says that that's where she buried her oldest cat.     

“She was 23 years old. I think it's nice that her body gives nutrition to the plant and seeing this one can really understand how we all are a part of a cycle. I don't think you should see death as some definite ending, with the ecological burial the body nurtures a new life. I think that's a beautiful thought”.

Andreas Liljeheden is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.