We have been asked after posting a story on the Nepia Whanau Pou what our problem is with headstones and granite.

Our answer is simple. They are all imported from ports as far away as China, India and Norway. The carbon footprint, carbon emissions are huge.

An external analysis identified on average each imported headstone to NZ causes over 60kg of carbon emissios. Now as a one off that is not huge, but if you look at our cemeteries there are thousands. Over 30,000 in one major NZ cemetery alone. It literally means we are killing our planet to honour our dead. It makes no sense.

Our question back is how did this practice of imported granite and marble headstones become our norm? When did we stop using our ingenuity, creativity and effort to craft memorials from our own land? How is it that Council cemeteries have not demanded a domestic solution? If for other reason but to lower the environmental cost of our cemeteries?

We have learned that there was in fact a time when memorial monuments were mostly crafted of granite and marble mined in NZ quarries, however that was long ago before it became far more profitable to just import much cheaper stone and to pay for masonry craftsman ship in India and China than to even bring the stones here and have it worked by traditional kiwi monumental masons.

For over 50 years now the purchase of foreign stone has been our norm, without most of us even knowing.

So we are not against foreign granite and marble headstones. We are against those being our only option.

After 3 years of massive research and development and rounds of independent testing we have crafted a domestic stone 3 times the code requirement that will stand the test of time, bring back personalisation and artistic design at an affordable price and bring jobs back to New Zealand.

Yet there are cemeteries who are placing every barrier in front of us that they can, stating they are a granite and marble only cemetery.

We have even had one trust-run cemetery state that if we threaten the profit margin of the Masons we are not going to be welcome to offer any services to families at that cemetery. Regardless of the quality of what we do, and the service we offer families.

Innovation is never easy, especially in an old old industry like this. But when ones focus is the well-being of our nation, and of helping every person and family through grief over a focus on the profit of a couple shareholders, giving in to the norm is just not going to happen.