Natural Stone Council Continues Building Online Resource Library
By Masonry
The Natural Stone Council (NSC), a collaborative organization representing business and trade associations serving the natural stone industry, has announced the addition of a Life-Cycle Inventory and fact sheet for slate on their website – www.GenuineStone.org.
The NSC, in partnership with the University of Tennessee’s Center for Clean Products (CCP), has developed a series of life-cycle inventories including granite, limestone, sandstone, and now slate quarrying and processing operations which are all available online - www.genuinestone.com/env_researchandresults.php. These reports characterize the environmental profile of natural stone industry operations by providing an estimate of embodied energy, water consumption and material resource utilization per ton of stone extracted and produced as well as identify areas of improvement.
Other Life-Cycle Inventories available at no charge on the Genuine Stone website include:
- LCI Dataset: Granite
- LCI Dataset: Limestone
- LCI Dataset: Sandstone
- Life-Cycle Inventory: Slate
The NSC’s material fact sheets are intended to serve as reference materials for designers, architects, and even researchers, among other audiences. The beauty of the fact sheets is their brevity – they provide a quick overview of a particular material. The one-page (double-sided) documents are partially fed by the life-cycle inventories and inform the reader about the stone’s natural formation, region(s) of deposits worldwide, physical properties, applicable ASTM standards, as well as environmental and human health considerations.
Other material fact sheets that may be found on the NSC site include:
- Material Fact Sheet: Granite
- Material Fact Sheet: Limestone
- Material Fact Sheet: Marble
- Material Fact Sheet: Sandstone
- Material Fact Sheet: Slate
In addition to these two new resources for slate, visitors to the site will find a variety of case studies, best practices, information on green building standards, and general information about natural stone and its benefits. Access to the website is free and does not require any log in.
About the Author
Masonry, the official publication of the Mason Contractors Association of America, covers every aspect of the mason contractor profession - equipment and techniques, building codes and standards, business planning, promoting your business, legal issues and more. Read or subscribe to Masonry magazine at www.masonrymagazine.com.