Article Number : 2529 |
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| Date | 9/21/2007 9:13:13 AM |
| Written By | LGM & Associates Technical Flooring Services |
| View this article at: | //floorbiz.com/BizResources/NPViewArticle.asp?ArticleID=2529 |
| Abstract | Hollis, N.H.—The Natural Stone Council (NSC), a collaborative organization representing business and trade associations that promote stone under the Genuine Stone brand, has entered its Committee on Sustainability into a partnership with the University of Tennessee’s Center for Clean Products... |
| Article | Hollis, N.H.—The Natural Stone Council (NSC), a collaborative organization representing business and trade associations that promote stone under the Genuine Stone brand, has entered its Committee on Sustainability into a partnership with the University of Tennessee’s Center for Clean Products. The alliance is charged with researching and promoting the ways natural stone can contribute to the green building movement. The NSC’s “Green Committee,” as it’s known to many in the industry, met recently with Jack Geibig, director of the University of Tennessee’s Center for Clean Products, in Washington, D.C. Geibig and his team of environmental engineers proposed a comprehensive, multi-year sustainability plan, which includes background research, the development of product-specific environmental fact sheets and data supporting Life Cycle Assessment, and benchmarking of industry environmental practices as well as communication of this information to both the stone industry and the design community. The committee and research team are currently in the early phases of conducting on-site reviews of the environmental impacts of natural stone quarrying and fabrication processes. From these reviews, a data collection tool will be developed to gather information from as many stone quarries and fabricators as possible. This information will help establish the baseline environmental footprint of the stone industry and form the building blocks for creating life-cycle data and developing life-cycle assessments of genuine stone compared to other building materials. “Because stone is such an important material in a number of key building product classes,” said John Mattke, chairman of the NSC Committee on Sustainability, “it is crucial for the natural stone industry to be able to characterize the life-cycle impacts of its products in order to meet the evolving demands of the green building marketplace. In order to do this, we are developing and pursuing a plan to promote the identification and adoption of sustainable practices throughout the industry.” By the end of 2008, the NSC Committee on Sustainability and the Center for Clean Products plans to have accomplished the following: •Completed the benchmarking process for key manufacturing and quarrying operations during the production of natural stone products. •Identified stone industry best practices. •Established effective communications and outreach efforts both to internal and external groups. •Developed/distributed life-cycle inventory data sets for key materials and operations. •Created environmental specification sheets for several natural stone materials. The NSC Committee on Sustainability consists of chairman John Mattke, Cold Spring Granite Co.; Alex Bacharach, Stone World Magazine; Bill Eubank, Luck Stone Corp.; Dan Ouellette, Luck Stone Corp.; Kathy Spanier, Cold Spring Granite Co.; Quade Weaver, TexaStone Quarries, and Garen Distelhorst, Marble Institute of America. For more on the Natural Stone Council and its programs, call 800.210.3916. |