Paris Has Opened Its First Green Cemetery

Under Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Paris has set ambitious goals for sustainability. Now Parisians will now be able to reduce their carbon footprints even after death: A 17,000-square-foot section with 150 green-burial plots has opened in the Southern suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine. It is part of the larger City of Paris Cemetery in Ivry-sur-Seine, operated by the city.

According to Pénélope Komitès, deputy mayor in charge of funerary affairs, the city’s first eco-friendly burial ground is another initiative in the fight against climate change. “To keep with our ambition and Paris’s target to be carbon neutral by 2050, no field can be forgotten,” said Komitès. In 2015, Paris banned the use of pesticides in all 20 of its cemeteries, which total more than 1,000 acres.