Fundraising Initiatives

The annual fundraising goal of $500,000 has been surpassed this year and the NSC is proud to announce a pledge total of $594,200. 86% of this amount has already been collected, with the rest due at the end of 2008. This has assisted the three primary initiatives of branding, sustainability, and long-term funding. The NSC continues the process of applying for grant funding and continues to seek support.

NSC's Green Effort

For over a year, the NSC has been telling the story of its ongoing effort to characterize, and ultimately improve, the natural stone industry’s environmental profile. The time has come to share phase one results of this work with the building and design communities.

The life-cycle inventory (LCI) datasets for the quarrying and processing of natural stone products are now available on the Genuine Stone® website at genuinestone.org. This information includes embodied energy, water consumption, and the raw materials needed in the extraction/manufacturing operations.  Additional work to update and refine the data is ongoing and a second version of the LCI is scheduled for release in the upcoming year. The LCI data has been used to identify improvement areas for the natural stone industry and will later facilitate life-cycle assessments (LCA) of stone products. Results can be measured against those of stone’s competitors to compare environmental impacts.

The first best practice guidelines and case studies are in their final review stages. Both will be available on the Genuine Stone website by late fall of this year. The best practice centers on water consumption, treatment and reuse. The case study describes potential LEED credits for stone and provides examples of buildings where stone contributed to its LEED certification, among other green recognition programs. These publications are, respectively, the first ever baseline for industry operations. They are also a standard organizational tool for reporting real examples of the environmental benefits of building with stone.

Fact sheets for various stone types will also be available on the Genuine Stone website this fall.  These documents will provide physical characteristics and uses of stone, as well as environmental information such as embodied water and energy. Designers will find these materials useful when attempting to identify an environmentally-preferable product.

As materials are produced they will become available to trade association members and offered at trade shows (StonExpo 2008, GreenBuild 2008, and AIA 2009). Additionally, representatives from the NSC along with the UT Center for Clean Products will be present at StonExpo 2008 to discuss the NSC’s sustainability initiative, its applicability to multiple audiences, and what lies ahead for the program.

In a most recent accomplishment, the NSC Sustainability team has been accepted as a presenter at the 2009 AIA convention. More details to come at a later date!

The NSC and UT would like to thank everyone who has participated in this vital effort to position natural stone in the green building industry. To learn more about the efforts of the NSC Committee on Sustainability, please visit GenuineStone.org or contact John Mattke, Chairman of the NSC Committee on Sustainability, at 320.685.3621.

Check-Off Program

As the NSC check-off program continues to advance, legislative counsel in Washington D.C. has been officially retained by the NSC. Work on research and drafting of the enabling legislation is in its early stages with a goal to introduce a bill early in the next Congress.

Continued 2008 Goals:

• Agreement by the stone industry to tax itself, as the dairy and beef industries are already doing.
• Strengthen the idea that the ½ cent per dollar self-taxation of all imported and domestic stone will enable the industry to grow larger and more powerful through research and self-promotion.

The NSC hopes to identify Members of Congress that natural stone industry individuals may know, and whom the NSC could approach to help draft and support the plan.  This will aid the facilitation of an industry-wide check-off. To gather this type of information, NSC associations have asked their members to complete a resource inventory survey, which will identify friends in Congress.  If you have not received this survey via email, please feel free to contact Gary Distelhorst, director of the check-off task force at 440-250-9222 or gdistelhorst@marble-institute.com. The resource inventory survey is critical to our success and will provide an overall picture of the natural stone industry’s strengths and weaknesses within the U.S. Congress.  The results will be a foundation from which the NSC will create a legislative strategy for an industry check-off program.

Our Mission

The mission of the Natural Stone Council is to increase the understanding of, preference for, and consumption of stone sold under the Genuine Stone® brand.

The following associations are proud supporters of the Natural Stone Council:

• Allied Stone Industries
• Building Stone Institute
• Elberton Granite Association
• Indiana Limestone Institute
• Marble Institute of America
• National Building Granite Quarries Association
• National Slate Association
• Natural Stone Alliance

GenuineStone.org

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