A comprehensive estate plan should focus on ensuring that your assets are distributed pursuant to your instructions after you pass away and that your wishes are honored both while you are alive and after you are gone. That same plan, however, can accomplish numerous other interrelated goals. For example, if you live your daily life focused on sustainability and eco-friendliness, why not incorporate those goals into your estate plan as well. Toward that end, the Los Angeles attorneys at Schomer Estate & Wealth Advisors discuss how to leave a lasting green legacy for your children and grandchildren through eco-friendly estate planning.
Estate Planning Tools and Strategies That Are Eco-Friendly
Eco-friendly estate planning uses existing tools and strategies that combine traditional estate planning goals with your commitment to sustainability and desire to pass down to future generations your belief that we must act as guardians of the earth. Estate planning tools and strategies to help you achieve these goals include:
- Green Burial Options: Green burial is a growing trend in the funeral industry, offering environmentally conscious alternatives to traditional burial practices. Instead of using embalming chemicals and non-biodegradable caskets, green burials prioritize natural decomposition and minimal environmental impact. Biodegradable caskets or shrouds made from materials like wicker, bamboo, or recycled cardboard are used, allowing the body to return to the earth more easily. Some green burial sites also serve as conservation areas, supporting biodiversity and preserving natural landscapes.
- Green Funeral Services: Green funeral options may include natural burial grounds, biodegradable caskets or shrouds, cremation urns made from sustainable materials, and eco-friendly funeral arrangements and ceremonies. Virtual memorials and online tributes can also reduce the need for travel and paper-based materials, further minimizing the environmental impact of end-of-life celebrations. Green funeral services offer eco-friendly alternatives that prioritize sustainability, natural decomposition, and minimal environmental impact.
- Conservation Easements: Conservation easements are legal agreements that restrict development on a property to protect its natural, scenic, or cultural value. If you own land, you can put a conservation easement on your property, ensuring that it remains undeveloped and preserved for future generations. You can even tailor the easement to specific conservation goals, such as protecting wildlife habitat, preserving water quality, or maintaining agricultural land.
- Sustainable Investments: Sustainable investing, also known as socially responsible investing (SRI) or environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, involves considering environmental and social factors alongside financial returns when making investment decisions. Investments in environmentally responsible companies, renewable energy projects, or sustainable funds, for example allow you to combine your financial goals with your environmental beliefs.
- Charitable Lead or Remainder Trusts: A charitable lead or charitable remainder trust allows you to support a charitable environment cause while also providing financial security for your beneficiaries. In a charitable lead trust, the charity receives distribution for a set time after which the non-charitable beneficiaries receive the remaining principal with a charitable remainder trust providing for the non-charitable beneficiaries first with the remainder going to the charity.
- Digital Documentation: This is something that almost anyone can do to help the environment without regard to the value of your estate assets. By opting for digital documentation, you can reduce paper waste, minimize the environmental impact of printing and transportation, and ensure that important records are securely stored and easily accessible to your loved ones.
- Gifts of Nature: Leaving behind gifts of land, forests, or wildlife habitats to loved ones who share your commitment to the environment can be a meaningful way to pass on your values and preserve natural resources for future generations. Leaving gifts of nature to beneficiaries who are dedicated to sustainable land management and conservation can help ensure the long-term preservation of green spaces and biodiversity.
- Carbon Offsetting: Carbon offsetting involves compensating for carbon emissions by investing in projects that reduce or sequester an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases elsewhere. By calculating the carbon footprint of your estate and offsetting it through investments in carbon reduction projects, renewable energy initiatives, reforestation efforts, or other climate mitigation activities, you can help combat climate change and minimize your environmental impact. Carbon offsetting can be achieved through the purchase of carbon credits or participation in voluntary carbon offset programs offered by reputable organizations and certified carbon offset providers.
Do You Need Help with Eco-Friendly Estate Planning?
For more information, please join us for an upcoming FREE seminar. If you would like to incorporate eco-friendly estate planning tools and strategies into your estate plan, contact the experienced Los Angeles estate planning attorneys at Schomer Estate & Wealth Advisors by calling (310) 337-7696 to schedule an appointment.
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