Natural Stone Council Updates Sustainability Requirements for the Production of Natural Stone

In response to industry advances, new technology and best practices, The Natural Stone Council (NSC) has updated ANSI/NSC 373-2019: Sustainable Production of Natural Dimension Stone. NSF’s National Center for Sustainability Standards, which helped to facilitate the development of ANSI/NSC 373-2019, recently published the updates. The standard establishes criteria and methods for tracking, measuring and improving sustainability in the production of natural stone. ANSI/NSC 373-2019 applies to all processors of natural stone, from quarry operations to final stone fabricators.

Updates to ANSI/NSC 373 address a broad scope of issues including water, site management, land reclamation and adaptive use, corporate governance, management of excess process materials and innovation.

“The heart of ANSI/NSC 373: Sustainable Production of Natural Dimension Stone is continuous improvement. With the standard being in the market for about five years, we took feedback from certified companies as well as input from key green building programs to make necessary updates and ensure relevance,” said Kathy Spanier, Chair of the Natural Stone Council (NSC) Sustainability Committee.

How ANSI/NSC 373 Was Developed
The ANSI/NSC 373 standard was developed by the Natural Stone Council (NSC) in collaboration with Ecoform and NSF.

The Natural Stone Council is an organization that promotes the use of natural stone in commercial, residential, government, institutional and educational applications.

As an organization with a long history of facilitating the development of independent, consensus-based standards, NSF helped NSC develop ANSI/NSC 373 by gathering and managing a joint committee to define and agree on criteria for the standard. In accordance with ANSI requirements and NSF standards development processes, the joint committee is comprised of various key stakeholders including stone industry trade associations, quarry and processing companies, NGOs, architects, and government, environmental advocacy, academia, green building and design groups.

About NSF and the National Center for Sustainability Standards
NSF is an independent, global organization that protects human health by facilitating the development of public health and safety standards, and providing certification and testing services. Separately, we also offer auditing, education, risk management and consulting. Our major sectors are food, water, health sciences, sustainability and management systems.

NSF's National Center for Sustainability Standards facilitates the development of standards, product category rules (PCRs) and protocols in a consensus-based stakeholder process. Input from manufacturers, suppliers, regulatory agencies, environmental organizations, procurement professionals, product specifiers, customers and academia achieves acceptance and support for these market-changing standards.