MIA: Leadership Training
Vierra also highlighted the ongoing work of the Natural Stone Council (NSC) specific creating a natural stone certification. This effort includes:
• Establishing a set of well-defined environmental and human health metrics recognized by the green building movement as an indicator of leadership sustainability performance.
• Providing an important opportunity to educate key members of the green building movement, government and environmental advocacy groups about the production of stone products.
• Creating a mechanism that rewards natural-stone companies demonstrating environmental leadership through commitment to sustainable operations and continued innovation.
• Preempt competitor marketing claims by proactively addressing potential stone-related environmental and human health concerns in a multi-stakeholder, science based forum (i.e. radon, dust, etc.).
• Harmonize national and international environmental requirements for stone quarrying and production.
• Encouraging transparent chain of custody reporting in support of LEED credits for locally produced materials.
• Creating parity between stone and other competitive products covered by existing certification programs,as well as using lifecycle analysis and establishing a set of well-defined environmental and human health metrics recognized by the green building movement as an indicator of leadership sustainability performance.
Gary Distelhorst, MIA Executive Vice President, also showcased the group’s 2011 plans to complement the NSC efforts by developing a number of training tools to help showroom personnel throughout the industry understand the important topic of sustainability and how to present it to their clients.
Branding
Two branding presentations were presented, starting with Mark Fernandes, Chief Leadership Officer for Charles Luck Stone Centers, on creating the framework for, “What is a brand and why does it matter?”
• Brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company; when enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand…a brand is not what you say it is; it’s what they say it is.
• You matter to your customers to the degree that they become emotionally invested in your brand and your continued success; “When they want you to win.”