As the level of environmental awareness continues to grow, reducing our carbon footprint and doing ‘our part’ is consistently top-of-mind. Green building practices can substantially reduce negative environmental impacts through high-performance, operations, construction and design practices. Additional benefits can include a reduction in operating costs and an enhancement in building marketability.
As a response to the growing concern for the environment, a common method of independently certifying building qualities has been introduced. The Canada Green Building Council (CGBC) adapted several requirements from the US Green Building Council – LEED Certification System.
CGBC inherited a similar credit/point-based system that allocates points based on the potential environmental impacts and human benefits for each set of categories. Each rating system is organized into 5 environmental categories:
- Sustainable Sites (SS)
- Water Efficiency (WE)
- Energy & Atmosphere (EA)
- Materials & Resources (MR)
- Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ)
To earn LEED certification, a project must satisfy all the prerequisites and credits worth the minimum number of points to warrant the desired project rating under LEED Canada.
Algonquin Granite is proud to offer a product line that is entirely sourced from the Canadian Shield within the Northern Ontario Region. Our local quarrying and stone processing activities adhere to the strictest safety and environmental requirements. We strive to minimize our carbon footprint where sustainability and LEED certification points for our valued customers is of the utmost priority. Algonquin Granite’s processing plant reclaims the water it uses for its wire saws and re-uses it, has engineered and built majority of our stone saws with recycled resources and accepts skid returns for multi-purpose usage, among many other sustainable practices.
With this being said, the AG Team would be happy to assist you in providing you with sustainable building products for your project with the intent of creating an environmentally friendly building (commercial and/or residential) to receive LEED certification credits.
Please contact us to find out more about this process.