CARING FOR TILE FLOORS 8 9 09

Marble Institute of America (M.I.A.) Thinking GREEN

MIA Opens New Sustainability Fund (April 21) E-mail
Wednesday, 21 April 2010 14:10

CLEVELAND – The Marble Institute of America (MIA) will support the green-materials work of the Natural Stone Council (NSC) with a new funding plan.

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The MIA’s Natural Stone Sustainability Fund, announced yesterday, will raise money for the NSC’s sustainability initiative. The fund will also defray MIA costs of its own sustainability efforts, including a green advertising campaign, the creation of natural-stone sustainability CEU programs, the development of educational resources and much more.

“Ultimately, it will help the MIA to further develop a case for natural stone being viewed as an environmentally preferred, sustainable building material,” said MIA President Brett Rugo.

In the past few years, the NSC gathered and developed data to make a credible case for natural stone as a sustainable building material. Much of this work substantiating the stone industry’s environmental footprint, through scientific means, has been done by the University of Tennessee’s Center for Clean Products (CCP), a neutral third party.

“MIA, with over 1,700 member firms, is raising funds from across the U.S. and around the globe to not only continue to support the work of NSC on sustainability, but also to educate designers and communicate to all a message about the many attributes of natural stone as a sustainable building material,” said Rugo, who’s also president of Rugo Stone LLC in Lorton, Va.

To facilitate the fund-raising effort, MIA has established the MIA Natural Stone Sustainability Honor Roll ,and will recognize and honor supporters at the levels of Platinum ($10,000 and above); Gold ($5,000-$10,000); Silver ($2,000-$5,000); and Bronze ($500-$2,000).

“With MIA’s global reach among quarriers, distributors, contracting installers, fabricators and others, we feel the association can really help in raising funds that will enable this effort to be accelerated,” Rugo added.

Expenditures from the fund will be overseen by MIA’s executive committee.

Contributions can be sent to the Marble Institute Natural Stone Sustainability Fund in Cleveland.

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The Beginning

MARBLELIFE, Inc. was founded in 1988 to service a growing demand for stone, tile & grout restoration & after-installation care. What began as an effort to develop a unique line of care products, quickly expanded into development of restoration and care services and techniques. With a shortage of stone craftsman throughout the US, MARBLELIFE was conceived to develop a nationwide network of craftsmen capable of providing a consistent high quality set of products and services throughout the country.

By 1990 it had become clear that MARBLELIFE would need to expand into a proprietary service provider in-order to meet customer demands and growth requirements. The business was sold to its most successful franchise owner in 1991. Since then, the business has expanded from 8 to more than 55 locations, broadening its coverage from national to international to become the leading name in stone restoration and care in the industry.

Today, MARBLELIFE provides proprietary stone restoration, maintenance and care products and services to the leading hotels, commercial, business owners and entertainment people in the world.