Discover Norway

By Åse Skrøvset, Executive Director of Funeral Federation of Norway/Virke Gravferd, Norway

Virke Gravferd is part of the main organization Virke, which organizes the trade and service industry in Norway. The main organization Virke has around 25,000 members, of which 320 are funeral homes and belong to our part of the organization. I started as Executive Director for Virke Gravferd on the 1st of March this year. My education is in landscape architecture, and I started my career in consulting firms where, among other things, I designed many cemeteries. This commitment led me to a position as a National Cemetery Adviser and later Specialist Head of cemeteries at the County Governor. In my new position as Executive Director for the funeral sector, the focus will shift from the burial ground to the funeral. I see this as an exciting and challenging job where appearing as a unifying leader for the funeral sector will be important in the following years. As leader, I want to be accessible and welcoming to our members. We live in a time where major changes are taking place on many levels and building competence among members to be able to meet these in a good way will be an important focus area. Creating good framework conditions for the funeral industry is also essential and will have a high priority.

Norway is a country with a low population density and long distances. We have traditionally had many small, individual funeral homes in this country. In recent years, there has been a development in that more and more companies are joining an association or chain. This provides many advantages, including a professional network, better purchasing arrangements and the possibility of assistance when demanding situations arise. All funeral homes in Norway are private and Virke Gravferd organizes around 90% of them. In 2022, 45,774 people died in Norway, which gives a mortality rate of 8.4%. The number of deaths increased by more than 10% from the previous year and is related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The churchyards and cemeteries are, with few exceptions, public and for everyone regardless of faith or outlook on life. There are around 2,200 of them scattered throughout the country. Many of the churchyards were built in the Middle Ages and have high cultural heritage value. The proportion choosing cremation is rising and in 2022 47.9% of the dead were cremated. The cremation rate varies from municipality to municipality and is highest in and around the capital of Oslo. The scattering of ashes was opened at the end of the 1990s and last year 926, which corresponds to 4% of those cremated, were scattered in nature.

The funeral homes face many challenges in the coming years. One of them is safeguarding a good reputation.

If you would like to learn more about funeral industry in Norway, we invite you to read whole article in the winter issue of THANOS magazine - you can read online at pages 8-9

Read online THANOS magazine