Stone is a building material that has been used for many years all over the world. Even today we can appreciate monuments and buildings with centuries of history, which continue with their architectural value, due to the timelessness that stone as a natural material offers us, even more when it is properly cared you.
It has always been a widely used material due to its great ability to realize the most diverse projects, from facades, internal and external areas and floors, for showing elegance linked with simplicity, presenting unique and unparalleled characteristics, colors and textures of the chosen stone, making each project special, unique and sustainable, since LSI ensures all production in the most environmentally friendly way possible.
Stone is a material that comes 100% from nature, being worked as it was extracted, without anu additives, only when it needs to be treated. On the contrary, ceramics are man-made, composed of several inorganic chemicals, which together originate the product, this is a building material that despite its great demand for its cheaper option has limitations in its production, not being able to create worked designs and not being as durable as the stone that lasts forever, despite appearing a totally uniform color unlike the stone, which due to its naturalness the color difference will be more obvious.
Approaching the concept of overall sustainability, it becomes evident that natural stone boasts a smaller ecological footprint in contrast to porcelain. The extraction, crafting, finishing, and transportation of natural stone entail minimal resource consumption. Conversely, the manufacturing stages of porcelain demand substantial water and energy utilization, consequently contributing to a higher Global Warming Potential (GWP). This metric signifies the Earth-warming potency of gases relative to CO2 across a specified span.
These inherent qualities position natural stone as an excellent contender when pursuing eco-friendly building certifications like the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Notably, the divergence in production procedures and material impacts finds expression in labels such as Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Health Product Declarations (HPDs). Such labels offer a streamlined avenue for accumulating points and credits within LEED and comparable green building evaluation systems via natural stone. Furthermore, these labels validate the veracity and transparency of environmental and health assertions against predefined benchmarks.
In tandem with these endeavors, the natural stone industry has exhibited a steadfast commitment to ongoing enhancements across every facet of the production cycle. This progressive journey encompasses water and energy conservation, heightened transportation efficiency, judicious stewardship and adaptive reuse of quarry sites, and a spectrum of other initiatives aimed at propelling sustainability.
