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Sustainable Stone is Now LEED Certified11-02-16 | Department

Sustainable Stone is Now LEED Certified

Following the U.S. Green Building Council's approval of the Sustainable Production for Natural Dimensional Stone (ANSI/NSC 373) certification, landscape architects who specify certified natural stone in their projects can now apply its use for LEED credits.

The Sustainable Production for Natural Dimensional Stone (ANSI/NSC 373) certification is now recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED v4 building certification and the International Living Future Initiative's Living Building Challenge version 3.1.

The certification standard was created in 2014 by the Natural Stone Council, or NSC, an association comprised of the leading natural stone associations throughout the country. The goal of the standard was to provide natural stone fabricators and quarries with third-party verification of their sustainable practices, and to inform designers that certified stone is a sustainable material.

ANSI/NSC 373 is approved for Option 1 for LEED v4 BD+C and ID+C Material Resources credit Building Product Disclosure and Optimization – Sourcing of Raw Materials, as long as the facility and/or quarry has been certified through either optional Ecosystem Boundaries credit 7.2.1 or Environmental Impact Assessment credit 7.2.2. Their scorecard must also be publicly available.

In 2014, TexaStone Quarries became the first company to earn certification, with Coldspring being the second. Since then, additional companies have been certified with more working to earn certification.

For more information on the standard and what it takes for a company to get certified, visit https://naturalstonecouncil.org/education-training/nsc-initiatives/dimensional-stone-standard/.

As seen in LASN magazine, November 2016.