Low-carbon facade materials play a decisive role in reducing the environmental impact of buildings. With the NÉOMINÉRAL® innovation, Orsol offers a high-end cladding solution compatible with low-carbon construction projects.

The low-carbon principle

Low-carbon neighborhoods, architecture and equipment: all these projects have in common the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout their lifecycle.

How to assess the environmental impact of materials?

A material’s life cycle extends from the moment it is collected or extracted to the moment it is recycled, recovered or reused after the building has been demolished.

In the meantime, the material will have been transformed, using processes that are more or less energy-intensive and/or polluting. It will have been transported, with an inevitably higher carbon footprint for resources geographically distant from the construction site.

The ultimate low-carbon material is one that is produced locally, undergoes little processing and can be easily recycled at the end of its life cycle. The conditions of installation are not insignificant either.

Exemplary projects in this field rely heavily on off-site assembly to reduce constraints and lead times, and consequently the number of carbon-intensive return trips made by professionals.

The weight of materials in a building’s carbon footprint

On a building scale, materials have a major impact. The least eco-responsible materials have production processes that consume fossil fuels and water. This is the case with aluminum and steel, which consume a lot of energy and water for cooling. The use of recycled metals is a good way of minimizing this footprint.

It is also possible to mobilize materials whose initial production process is more virtuous. These include bio-sourced and geo-sourced materials such as wood and natural stone . Favoring these locally available resources is an essential lever for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The role of facades in reducing carbon emissions

The carbon weight of the façade has been estimated at between 8% and 25% of the building’s total footprint. A considerable share calculated on the basis of several multi-family housing and office construction projects, as part of a study by the French Institute for Building Performance (Ifpeb) and the Carbone 4 consultancy, published in 2022.

The study reveals several ways in which facades can improve their carbon footprint. The use of less carbon-intensive materials is naturally encouraged, underlining the environmental impact of the type of exterior cladding, but architectural choices also play a role.

Glass walls are both more carbon-intensive and less decarbonizing. In other words, the prospects for optimizing the energy efficiency of a generously glazed building are slimmer. Here,traditional architecture seems to come out on top, with glazing-efficient facades and the use of locally available materials.

RE2020 2025 threshold requirements

The RE2020 environmental regulation provides for new emission thresholds to be phased in by 2031 to encourage low-carbon construction. The aim is to reduce the sector’s GHG emissions by 30%.

The facade and its external joinery are among the batches taken into account in the calculation of the IC construction indicator to assess the impact of products and equipment used on a building site on the environment.

Between 2022 and 2024, the maximum value of the CI for house construction was 640 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per square meter (kg CO2 eq/m²). It falls to 530 kg CO2 eq/m² for the period 2025 – 2027, reaching 415 kg CO2 eq/m² by 2031.

NÉOMINÉRAL®, Orsol’s low-carbon cladding solution

Orsol, a specialist in top-of-the-range cladding made in France, offers creative and innovative solutions that enhance characterful architecture and the unique charm of natural stone. Thanks to the composition and production conditions of its NÉOMINÉRAL® material, Orsol offers an alternative for low-carbon building facades.

Composed of 99% mineral-based materials, its various colors are obtained using natural pigments. The cold production process, based on the pozzolanic reaction, maintains a low level of CO2 emissions. Production waste and water are fully recycled.

Manufacturing in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region reduces transport-related emissions. Orsol’s suppliers are all European, and 93% are based in France. The installation system, validated by the CSTB, is simple and complies with the performance requirements expected in the construction industry.

NÉOMINÉRAL® responds to the need for low-carbon materials capable of meeting the increasingly stringent environmental impact requirements of the building industry.

In winter, more than ever, the home is our comfort zone. This season’s decor should make you want to curl up in the coziest corners of the house. The materials to favor are wood, velvet, wool… In other words, avoid anything that conveys cold or the idea of cold. To take things a step further, you can dress your interior walls with cocooning coverings that meet these criteria. Here are a few ideas.

Decorating ideas for a warm living room

Orsol, a specialist in low-carbon stone, offers top-of-the-range cladding products for every room in the house. For a warm living room, textured red brick is a must, while smooth stone goes easily with contemporary interiors.

Textured red facing brick near the fireplace

The natural hues of brick are perfectly reproduced by Orsol facings. Non-flammable, these products can be installed quickly and easily behind a stove or around a fireplace insert. Nevertheless, a few precautions must be taken to ensure proper installation. The Orsol team is at your disposal to answer any questions you may have. You’ll also find advice and best practices in this article on installing cladding behind a heat source.

Smooth stone finishes for contemporary warmth

It’s not easy to create coziness in a contemporary interior. Generous volumes, large bay windows, the cool aesthetic of metal and raw materials… At first sight, this style is in opposition to rustic architecture and its small cottage or country house-style interiors. To bring warmth to these modern spaces, you need to play with furniture, accessories (curtains, plaids, cushions…), lighting and coverings. In the Orsol collection, smooth-finish facing stones such as Bercy or Infinity are ideal for bridging the gap between modernity and conviviality.

Cosy and comforting bedroom furnishings

In bedrooms, your cozy bedding will ideally be framed by a textured stone accent wall to give the room relief. The idea is to move away from aseptic walls and avoid uniformity of shape and color.

Several Orsol solutions meet this challenge with irregular stones and a variety of colors in warm shades. The Causse and Manoir collections offer reconstituted stone in a variety of sizes and harmonious shades, starting with a “sienna” or slightly darker “rose red” tone.

The Meulière collection also offers a variety of colors and stone sizes, but with the deeper reliefs characteristic of meulière stone. The rubble look and shell-like reliefs are ideal for decorating a cosy bedroom in winter.

Original, easy-care kitchen surfaces

The kitchen is a convivial space that must above all remain functional. So, a warm winter decor, yes, but not at the cost of brightness.

Aged limestone is ideal for adding depth while reflecting light. With the Causse collection on trellis, the stones are assembled seamlessly in highly instinctive, irregular patterns. Shades range from “natural” to “golden beige” for clarity. Ideal for a rustic kitchen.

For more contemporary, but no less cozy interiors, the Cubik collection is a good option. It, too, brings a dose of irregularity, but with rectangular-shaped stones. A fine balance between raw texture and controlled form, reminiscent of the geometric volumes of modern buildings.

Easy to maintain, Orsol siding can be cleaned to preserve its original appearance, even in rooms prone to soiling.

A return to the architecture of traditional houses has become a necessity in a context where local resources and know-how are valued. These best practices, partly handed down through use, constitute a heritage rooted in the region, and a new source of inspiration for designing naturally resilient buildings.

This is reflected in facade cladding trends, with a pronounced taste for references to locally available materials. Here are some ideas for applying Orsol cladding in regional styles.

Collection Meulière, a nod to Parisian mansions

Millstone was the emblematic material of 19th-century and early 20th-century middle-class homes in the Paris region. It is also found in the richly ornamented villas of the Art Nouveau style. These characterful buildings are also known as meulières or maisons meulières.

Driven by its passion for stone, Orsol seeks to revive this unique character with its reconstituted stone solutions from the Meulière Collection. The result is perfect, with a product that’s reliable, resistant, more flexible and easier to install for Meulière house-inspired cladding.

Collection Causse: dry stone in Quercy

The Quercy Basin, rich in limestone plateaux, also known as the Causses du Quercy, has given rise to a picturesque architecture, recognizable by its typical houses with adjoining turrets, corbelled tiles (génoise) and covered stoops (bolets). Dry limestone and its naturally ochre tones are inseparable from this style and, more broadly, from the architecture of traditional houses in the South-West.

Orsol’s Causse Collection takes up this singular aesthetic with reconstituted stone in elongated shapes with a fine grain and soft relief, available in natural, sienna or golden beige hues.

Tertus Collection: the stacked dry stones of Bonifacio

Corsica’s building tradition reflects the richness of its soils: schist on the Cap Corse peninsula, granite further south and limestone in the Bonifacio region. The local heritage includes exposed stone facades with dry stone dressings, sometimes dry-mounted without mortar.

To recreate this stacked look, also found on low walls and exterior walls, Orsol offers reconstituted stone cladding from the Tertus Collection, available in natural, shaded beige and golden beige tones.

ROCA Collection: for mountain refuges

At high altitude, local people have made do with the resources of the land, mainly wood and stone. Although these materials are locally abundant, they are not necessarily readily available. Smaller stones may have facilitated transport and played a role in traditional mountain architectural styles. The use of stones in a wide variety of sizes also reflects the need to make the most of all available resources.

The Roca Collection reflects this approach to home architecture, with great variation in both the size of the stones and the shades of each of the reconstituted stones assembled on a ready-to-install lattice.

What about the granite of Breton houses and the shelters that line coastal paths? Orsol is currently working on the launch of a new Granite Collection in 2025 for the reconstituted stone facings of typical Breton houses.

Would you like to use an eco-friendly material to renovate your home? Discover cladding stone, a solution for reducing the carbon footprint of your wall or floor cladding, without compromising on aesthetics and efficiency!

What is reconstituted stone?

Reconstituted stone is a floor or wall covering, for interior or exterior use, made from mineral aggregates. These aggregates are bonded with a binder and molded into the desired size and format, to reproduce the appearance of natural stone.
Reconstituted stone is lighter and less expensive than natural stone. It’s perfect for smaller budgets looking to renovate or embellish! What’s more, it’s a durable stone, resistant to wear and impact, as well as to temperature variations.
Thanks to a sophisticated manufacturing process, it’s possible to obtain subtle shades and shapes adapted to a precise geographical area, or to reproduce an old facing in the case of a home extension.

What are the advantages of reconstituted stone?

A stone that adapts to your environment

Reconstituted stone manufacturing techniques have now been perfected toimitate natural stone. If your home already has natural stone cladding, you can integrate reconstituted stone without the risk of altering the façade of your home (or your interior).
Stone cladding can also be adapted to the architectural style of the house or its location. It can imitate marble, porcelain stoneware, natural stone and other mineral materials.
With proper maintenance, stone cladding is durable and resistant. It is less likely to crack or discolor than natural stone. Of course, it is advisable to choose a quality manufacturer to guarantee durability and a natural appearance.

Reduced environmental impact

Reconstituted stone is often presented as an environmentally-friendly material for home cladding or flooring. Indeed, compared to natural stone, its carbon impact is reduced. The processes involved in extracting natural stone and transporting it entail CO2 emissions of varying degrees, whereas it’s possible to do without them by opting for reconstituted stone!
Manufactured in our own workshops, all you need to deliver your new cladding or paving is the transport to your home, while enjoying an aesthetic very similar to that of natural stone. It’s a sustainable, environmentally-friendly solution that meets the latest building standards and the challenges of the energy transition.
Do you have a more comprehensive energy renovation project in mind? There are a number of things you can do to improve your home’s energy performance. Hello Watt can help you make the right choices for your house and home!

A simplified worksite

Being lighter and thinner than natural stone, reconstituted stone is easier to install. And it’s quicker too! It’s easier to lay indoors or outdoors, and you’re less limited in terms of substrates.
Not to mention that the price of reconstituted stone flooring or wall cladding is lower! You can also take advantage of this opportunity to carry out other renovation work, such as insulating walls, floors or attics. Find out more about the price of attic or wall insulation to reduce heat loss, and carry out several jobs at the same time!

Why choose ORSOL Neomineral stone to renovate your home?

• Reduced carbon impact: Compared to natural stone, reconstituted stone limits emissions linked to transport and extraction processes, contributing to a more sustainable project.
• Lightweight and durable: easy to handle and extremely robust, it guarantees a long service life when properly maintained.
• Ideal for facades: ORSOL’s Neomineral cladding is perfect for finishing your facade, especially after exterior wall insulation.
• Reinforced interior insulation: This cladding can also be applied to the interior, improving the thermal insulation of your living space.
• Compatibility with ecological construction: Whether for low-energy houses or current building standards, reconstituted stone fits in perfectly.

Other actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint include energy renovation work, everyday eco-gestures and changing your energy supplier. Click here to use a free and reliable energy comparator, and save money!

With ORSOL, a specialist in the manufacture of top-of-the-range NÉOMINÉRAL stone wall cladding, no special maintenance is required for interior walls. For exterior installations, regular renewal of water-repellent protection is all that’s needed to extend the life of the cladding. Let’s take a closer look at how to protect, maintain and clean interior and exterior stone cladding.

How do you protect new stone cladding?

Water-repellent protection is one of ORSOL’s substrate preparation and installation products. This precaution is essential outdoors to protect the cladding from rain, but also indoors in damp rooms.

Protecting interior stone cladding

In “wet” rooms such as kitchens and bathrooms, walls are constantly exposed to water vapor. This humidity comes from cooking (pressure cookers, pots of boiling water…), but also from the operation of machines (washing machines, dishwashers). Showering and bathing are other activities that increase humidity in the ambient air.

In these rooms, contact between the walls and humidity-saturated indoor air leads to a clearly visible phenomenon on windows and mirrors. Condensation is more discreet on walls, but remains potentially harmful in the absence of appropriate treatment. For NÉOMINÉRAL stone cladding, a simple water-repellent treatment is all that’s needed after installation.

ORSOL offers several water repellents for sale. For more information, please contact our customer service department by filling in the contact form HERE.

Our sales department is at your disposal.

Protecting exterior stone cladding

When it comes to exterior cladding, we’re not just talking about water vapour, but also rainwater and runoff. Facade cladding must be treated to prevent any risk of infiltration. A water-resistant exterior envelope will also retain its original appearance for longer. Rain will wash away any surface dust deposits.

To protect your exterior cladding, ORSOL offers colorless and tinted water repellent treatment products. For smooth, graphic STATUR collection cladding installed without joints, you’ll need a tinted water repellent to best accompany outdoor installation? For other facings, a colorless water repellent will ideally protect the appearance of the natural stone.

When to repeat the operation on the facings?

This operation should be repeated approximately every 5 years for exterior cladding. This low-impact rhythm is sufficient to ensure maximum durability against the elements.

Indoors, you can also repeat the water-repellent treatment in damp rooms. Here too, an application every 5 years is sufficient to protect the wall against water vapour.

How do I clean interior or exterior stonework?

ORSOL siding does not need to be cleaned to remain in perfect condition. Nevertheless, accidents can happen. What should you do if a dirty liquid splashes onto an interior wall? Or a mark on an exterior wall?

Cleaning siding: beware of aggressive products

Whatever the type of stain, you need to move forward gradually. Start with the gentlest cleaning method. Never start with a product containing powerful active compounds, which could prove ineffective as well as damaging to the material. A stained and then damaged surface will be all the more difficult to clean. We recommend using a pH-neutral product to preserve the integrity of the siding.

A simple and effective way to clean facing stones

If the accident has just happened, simply soak up the liquid with a damp cloth or sponge. This should be enough to remove any unsightly traces. If the stain has had time to dry, moisten the surface and proceed in the same absorbent way. To clean more difficult-to-reclaim stonework, you can use a soft bristle brush. Rub the stain lightly in small circular movements.

Which stone cladding to use in a dirty room?

Do you worry about having to clean your interior stonework too often in messy rooms like the kitchen? Or outside, on the walls of the terrace where you eat and cook in summer?

First of all, the treatment recommended by ORSOL helps protect the cladding against stains. Dirt remains superficial on a water-repellent surface , making it easier to wash off when necessary. It also makes it possible to install old-style stone cladding or a contemporary villa around the pool.

Next, you can choose a color that makes any dirt less visible. Choose combinations of different natural shades and less uniform assemblies. If the cladding features several stones of different shapes, tones and sizes, it will be much harder to spot any anomalies.

What you need to know to clean stonework properly

The best approach is to choose a wall covering and treatment suited to the conditions in which it will be installed (damp rooms, facades, swimming pools, etc.). Then be sure to follow the manufacturer’s recommended maintenance schedule.

In the event of a stain, simply clean the exterior or interior facing stone with a soft cloth and a little water. If the surface is in good condition, it will be easier to wash.