Designed on values

It’s uncanny how a series of events can lead you to a place where you were born to be – a place where you can make a real difference in the world. For Greg and Leanne Holdsworth, that place is their ‘new design casket and urn manufacturing business Return To Sender.

On first impression the factory looks and smells much like a joinery, only the products have that somewhat ominous look about them – but that’s probably just me. I’m at Return To Sender’s New Lynn premises to meet a couple who are quietly turning ‘old school’ funeral casket manufacturing on its head.
Leanne Holdsworth has just returned from a delivery to a West Auckland funeral director. As I sit down in the office with her and husband Greg (and their new kitten which is busy climbing over everything!) I soon get the feeling this is a couple who’re not only on a mission to shake up the casket industry, but also help save the environment in the process (Return To Sender plants a native tree for every casket sold).
While they have a website (returntosender.co.nz) Leanne and Greg don’t sell their handcrafted caskets and urns direct to the public yet – most of their marketing efforts are aimed at the country’s funeral directors, and at creating awareness for their award-winning products. If people don’t know there’s a unique, environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional caskets and urns, they certainly won’t ask for one.
So how did the business come about?
Both Leanne and Greg have interesting backgrounds. Leanne is a former chartered accountant who turned her back on the corporate world because she believed “there was a values mismatch between me and their profits”.
“At a Johnson & Johnson New Leadership forum I discovered I was not alone in my thinking. There is a common dissatisfaction with the corporate model of making more money and buying more stuff – it simply doesn’t allow us to be fully-expressed human beings.”
The outcome of that forum was the book A New Generation of Business Leaders which Leanne wrote to celebrate the CEOs of businesses that are ‘doing well by doing good’; it would also lead on to a ten year career consulting in corporate responsibility.
The couple have been involved in the travel publishing industry, at one stage working out of a rammed-earth cottage in Central Otago – before Greg went on to complete a production design degree at age 40; the latter would prove instrumental in launching Return To Sender.
The Holdsworths clearly share a love and concern for the environment and in 2005 were a week into their ‘OE’ exploring eco-business opportunities when Leanne’s father passed away – necessitating a quick return to Auckland. It was at the family home where Greg first noticed how the values of the chosen coffin – with its plastic ‘metal-look’ handles and fake woodgrain MDF construction – in no way matched the values of his father-in-law, who had enjoyed a lifetime passion for timber. “He would have been horrified,” says Greg.
Some years later when Greg’s own father died, the difficulty sourcing an authentic coffin provided further fuel for the business idea. It was also the final year of Greg’s design degree and he had been given an open brief for his final assignment. So he decided to design a coffin based on his experience and observations. Simplicity, minimal and natural materials would be his guiding influences.
“The beauty of an academic assignment like this is you don’t have normal commercial constraints; I was able to spend many weeks properly researching the market.”
Greg produced a full-size prototype, which attracted positive interest and a couple of enquiries, one from a personal friend who also happened to be a funeral director. A further confidence boost came when the Smithsonian Institute in the US included one of Greg’s Artisan caskets in its exhibition on ‘designs that would influence the future of social behaviour’.
After a series of technical refinements, and the realisation that with just one product there was no business, the business was ramped up further and the relationship with the funeral director industry went from strength to strength.
The whole process of starting up Return To Sender has taught Leanne and Greg an appreciation of how much effort is required to get a product to the stage where people want to buy it – as well as the importance of route to market. “If there isn’t an easy route to market, don’t even go there,” advises Leanne.

Business with meaning
Greg and Leanne have set a goal of capturing around ten percent of the casket and urn market – and with around 30,000 deaths in New Zealand each year, it’s considerable in size.
The business has demonstrated strong and consistent growth in recent times. Since September 2012, month-on-month growth has ranged between 55 and 120 percent.
Acceptance and awareness of their product has been heightened by television exposure – the funeral of a high profile New Zealander featured a Return To Sender casket.
“It made our somewhat ‘radical’ casket suddenly appear more acceptable and normal,” recalls Greg. Leanne found that event particularly satisfying because it was a great “values match”. “Knowing who it was, the casket was a perfect match for the essence of the man who lay in it.”
Today the Holdsworths envisage a strong, sustainable business in New Zealand. They have already exported their IP to a large mainstream casket manufacturer in Melbourne who has also seen the need to cater for the ‘Baby Boomers’ desire to have caskets reflect their life.
Greg and Leanne see more opportunities across the Tasman as the industry there adjusts to changing needs and the threat of cheap imports. Advice from Aussie-based strategy consultant Martin Tobin, who’s in tune with the industry’s global trends, has proved invaluable. They’re also working with ATEED in order to break into the UK – a market unique for its large number of natural eco-burial sites.
As for the industry in New Zealand, they see their ‘small business’ design versatility as a real plus in the market – and funeral directors are now consulting and engaging with them in order to design caskets and urns to meet specific personal needs. For Greg and Leanne the business is about educating the industry just as much as it is about producing an innovative product. While they admit they’ve merely bought themselves jobs for the moment (Leanne has worked in the business for a year now), their intention is not just profitability but also the ability to contribute philanthropically to the planet. Improved social justice and action for the environment are their prime motivators in life.
Meantime their big message is you don’t have to go down the traditional casket road any more. “Modern design follows us in life, why wouldn’t it follow us in death?” asks Leanne. “Design should always have the planet in mind – and that’s not hard if your mind is always open to it. And when you think about it, why shouldn’t everyone have the opportunity to have what they stood for in life reflected in their final vessel?”

Glenn Baker is editor of NZBusiness.