Katrina Spade is a designer and the inventor of a system that transforms the dead into soil (also known as human composting). In 2017, Spade founded Recompose, a public benefit corporation, with the goal of offering this new green funeral option to the public. Recompose led the successful legalization of human composting in Washington State in 2019 and began providing the service of human composting in 2020. The process is now also legal in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Vermont. Spade and her team have been featured in Fast Company, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, and The New York Times and on NPR and the BBC. She is an Echoing Green fellow, an Ashoka fellow, and a Harvard Kennedy School visiting social innovator.
