New Orleans
Overview
In New Orleans, Green For All is working with a variety of local partners to create clean-energy programs that include energy efficiency and other best practices, including strong equity provisions.
Local Partners
The Good Work Network provides business development services for small community-based businesses that support families and sustain communities. It staffs the Green Collaborative in New Orleans, which was established in 2009 to create synergies among organizations engaged in environmental justice and sustainability.
Seedco is a national non-profit organization that helps low-income people and communities achieve economic prosperity. It is helping to implement clean-energy policy in New Orleans.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is part of the central bank of the United States. The Atlanta Federal Reserve has a branch office in New Orleans.
The City of New Orleans Office of Community Development has led the city’s energy efficiency policies, including winning a Retrofit Ramp-Up grant and designing the city’s Energy Smart rebate program.
Green For All Programs
Green For All’s Communities of Practice facilitate innovation and sharing among on-the-ground practitioners who are working throughout the country on programs and policies to address climate change and create pathways out of poverty through green-collar jobs. New Orleans members of the Communities of Practice include the Good Work Network, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Seedco, City of New Orleans.
The Green For All Academy trains leaders from low-income communities and communities of color to engage their communities in support of the clean-energy jobs agenda. Academy graduates become on-the-ground leaders in the movement to create an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Green For All’s Academy Fellows in New Orleans have worked with the City of New Orleans and New Orleans Council for Community and Justice.
Campaigns
The State of Louisiana passed legislation in August 2009 that authorizes local governments to establish Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) finance districts that help homeowners finance renewable energy measures. Green For All and local partners are working to help the City of New Orleans identify a PACE or other financing tool that will create a foundation for a citywide clean-energy retrofit financing program that includes high-road job standards and effectively leverages federal resources to kick-start the local clean-energy economy.
The EnviRenew pilot program will use a neighborhood-driven delivery model to provide clean-energy measures, including a mix of solar and energy-efficiency improvements, to 250 homes. Green For All is helping the partnership built around EnviRenew meet its goals of hiring contractors and individuals from the community for the well-paid jobs on this project.
In the wake of the BP oil spill, Green For All is supporting the efforts of the Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation to help fisherpeople whose livelihoods have been jeopardized, or even wholly eliminated, by the oil gusher. Mary Queen of Vietnam has been helping contractors and workers who are moving into green sectors like urban agriculture, solar installation, and energy efficiency.
Green For All also provides technical assistance to the Green Collaborative, a coalition of green non-profits working to rebuild New Orleans as a green city, as it looks at potential projects and policies.
Funding
The City of New Orleans will receive approximately $1.2 million through the $20 million Retrofit Ramp-Up grant that the U.S. Department of Energy awarded to the Southeast Community Retrofit Ramp-Up Consortium. The City of New Orleans has set aside $580,000 in federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds to establish a revolving loan fund that will support clean-energy investments. In addition, the city’s Energy Smart program is expected to make $3.1 million available in rebates for clean-energy improvements.
Green For All is in discussions with a network of philanthropic donors about the possibility of engaging private investors to capitalize a revolving loan fund that will support a clean-energy retrofit pilot program in New Orleans. The organization has also provided assistance to the Women’s Donor Network’s efforts to support a clean-energy program that would help female-headed households access energy-efficiency retrofits.
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