Strata Stones Ltd in Ipswich, Suffolk, has joined the Ethical Stone Register (ESR). Strata is the English arm of Indian company Stone Age Private Ltd, which became the first Indian company on the Register last month (read more about that here).

Find out more about the Ethical Stone Register in the Stone Federation Great Britain 'Stone Village' at the Natural Stone Show in London, at ExCeL, 30 April-2 May

Like Stone Age Private Ltd, Strata enters the Register at the middle, Verification level, providing its clients with the assurance that comes from using an ESR registered company.

Strata Stones in the UK is headed by Nick Williams. The company distributes stone for hard landscaping and interiors from the company’s own quarries in India.

The Ethical Stone Register was created by Stone Federation Great Britain specifically for the natural stone industry in response to government initiatives such as the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and concerns in the construction industry about the ethical sourcing of stone.

The ESR initiative allows Stone Federation members, whatever their size, to offer a responsible and manageable ethical sourcing solution to their clients.

There are three tiers of membership of the Register – Declaration, Verification and Accreditation. The requirements of each level is explained below.

Declaration - At this tier, companies will have to complete a questionnaire looking at the responsible and ethical sourcing practices of their business. To achieve this level, a company will need to meet 100% of the criteria. The claims and assertions made by a firm at this level will be by means of self-declaration.

Verification - At this tier, the claims made by a company at the Declaration level will be externally verified. The initial verification will be for the company rather than each material they supply; however, they may choose to have some, or all of their stones included at Verification level. This will involve an independent auditor assessing the journey of the material and ensuring that the responsible and ethical sourcing criteria are met the whole way along the supply chain. Only verified stones will appear on the Register itself.

Accreditation - At this tier, members will have met the requirements of the Declaration and Verification tiers and will be further audited for this level. The aim is to have the scheme recognised and to gain credits within schemes such as BREEAM and LEED at this tier.

There will be more about Strata in the May issue of Natural Stone Specialist magazine (subscribe here).