After nearly five years of developing a sustainability standard for natural stone, the Natural Stone Council is pleased to announce that stone quarriers, fabricators and distributors in the U.S. and around the world can now participate in a process to become certified by the new standard, called ANSI/NSC-373 Sustainable Production for Natural Dimension Stone.

The purpose of the Standard:

  • To recoginize and drive sustainability practices in the natural dimension stone industry.
  • To establish a set of well-defined environmental, ecological, social responsibility and human health metrics through a multi-stakeholder, science-based approach, recognized by the green building movement as an indicator of leadership in sustainability performance.
  • To provide an opportunity to educate key members of the design and building professions, end users, government, and environmental advocacy groups about the production of natural dimension stone products.

The standard uses a four-tiered rating system (Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum), creating a mechanism that differentiates natural dimension stone companies that demonstrate environmental leadership through commitment to sustainable operations and continued innovation.

Two additional components to ANSI/NSC 373 Sustainable Production of Natural Dimension Stone are chain of custody and conformance:

The Chain of Custody Standard establishes the rules by which stone originating from a certified quarry and then processed in a certified processing facility is documented as it passes through the supply chain to its end user.  The goal is to insure that the end user who purchases certified stone for a project actually receives verified, certified stone.

The creation of the Guidance for Conformance document was directed by Jack Geibig of Ecoform, with a selected group of leaders from the process, which included pilot certification members TexaStone Quarries, Garden City, Texas and Lyons Sandstone, Lyons, Colorado.

 Please direct all questions about the standard and certification to the NSC: info@naturalstonecouncil.org