30 CONTEXT 180 : JUNE 2024 counted until the material reaches land in the UK. This is because the carbon resulting from production, handling and transport belongs to the exporting country until the product reaches the UK border. For example, under current carbon accounting rules, stone imported from China has a lower carbon footprint score than stone produced at a UK quarry just a few miles from where it will to be used. To exacerbate the wider sustainability calculation, the lower cost of imported stone does not reflect the fair wage rates and working conditions that are supported in the UK. Nor does it consider the costs of our world-leading health and safety practices, robust mineral planning process and internationally recognised quarry restoration that delivers significant biodiversity gain. All these are part of operating within the high UK standards. Both public- and private-sector organisations have rightly spent time focusing on procurement policies that acknowledge sustainability, ethical sourcing, skills retention and the benefits of spending in the local economy, and supporting the inclusion of the indigenous options. Despite this, UK suppliers continue to see buying specifications broken at late stages of contract awards in favour of marginally cheaper imported options. These options reflect neither the whole lifecycle costs, nor the real environmental, social and financial impacts of cheaper imports. The second issue of concern in relation to imports is that of geographical indicators applied to natural stone (or, in the case of the UK, the lack of them). Geographic indication (GI) schemes are familiar, with well-established mechanisms protecting identifiable products in food and agriculture, where location is an important part of their designation (from Cornish pasties to Scotch whisky). Why would that not also apply to products that come from the ground? The Mineral Products Association represents producers who extract and refine high-quality natural products that are geologically unique, such as natural dimension stone. MPA members who produce dimension stone – most of them independent, small and medium enterprises – have raised concerns that their products face unfair competition from lower-quality options that are being passed off as originating from specific locations across the UK, leading to substantial loss of business for UK companies. For example, Portland Stone, which can be produced only on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, is as geographically specific as a Melton Mowbray pork pie. The MPA believes that it should be afforded similar protection against cheap, low-quality imports being missold using its name. The argument for natural products such as stone is identical to that for food, and the protection afforded by the GI scheme is entirely appropriate for natural stone. Whereas a trademark protects intellectual property and applies to a manufacturer who is able to distinguish its product from others in the market, this cannot be applied to a natural product that may be offered by more than one producer in a geographically defined area. Unfortunately the UK government currently believes that trademarking is sufficient. That is unlike the EU, where new rules, agreed by the European Parliament in May 2023, extend protection to locally renowned non-food products across the EU and globally, such as lace, glass, jewellery, porcelain and, yes, natural stone. The first batch of European stone going through the GI process will effectively have the same level of protection that champagne currently enjoys. Albion Stone’s Jordon Mine on the Isle of Portland
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