Stone Industry Gathering Life-Cycle Data

Hired by the Natural Stone Council, a collaboration of the nation’s major stone trade associations, the Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville has embarked on a three-year research project to gather information and data supporting life-cycle assessment of natural stone in buildings. “BEES has nothing on stone,” said Jack Geibig, P.E., director of the center, referring to Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability, the software tool from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology that assesses economic and environmental performance through a product’s whole life cycle. “There is just no information on any of these products out there,” he explained, “and the stone industry recognized they wanted to be more informed and they wanted to engage in an honest way with the green building industry.”

John Mattke, president of Cold Spring Granite Company, based in Minnesota, and a representative of the Natural Stone Council and its environmental committee, said that the group initiated its research due to the growing influence of the green building movement. “Member companies want to market to green buildings, but they’re not quite sure what to do,” he said, also noting that “the majority of architects that we talked to feel that the product is green, but they don’t have such a great perception of the extraction process.”