Green building or environmentally friendly construction with natural materials, is an idea that has been around for several decades.
Energy price increases and the need for energy conservation when heating or cooling buildings have recently brought it to the fore.
This resulted in the formation in 1993 of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which has developed a building rating system called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Educational institutions (colleges, universities, grade, and high schools) are often requiring new buildings to be green, and a few jurisdictions (i.e., some cities) have some rules promoting green building. When "building green", dimension stone has a big advantage over steel, concrete, glazed glass and laminated plastics, whose productions are all energy intensive and create significant air and water pollution. As an entirely natural product, dimension stone also has an advantage over synthetic/artificial stone products, as well as composite and space-age materials.