Global Green is Growing in Holy Cross

The first thing you feel in the Global Green visitor’s center is a welcoming, peaceful atmosphere. The second thing you feel is relief at having worn decent socks since it is necessary to remove your shoes upon entering the show home.

In 2006, architecture enthusiast and sometime New Orleans resident Brad Pitt collaborated with Global Green USA for an international design competition, and more than 125 architects submitted plans for a net zero energy home, apartment complex, and community center in the lower Ninth Ward. Among the 10 jurors were Pitt, the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, and the Preservation Resource Center; the dean of the Tulane School of Architecture oversaw the competition. The selected design came to life as a visitor’s center in the Holy Cross neighborhood of New Orleans, and will soon be part of a larger neighborhood as Global Green completes its green construction.

“This is the first of what very soon will be five single family homes, an 18-unit apartment building, and a community center that is also going to hold the new coastal climate action center,” director Beth Galante explains. “All here on half a city block in the historic district known as the Holy Cross Neighborhood in the lower Ninth Ward. We are on the highest ground in New Orleans, seven feet above sea level, just like the French Quarter and uptown in the Garden District. We have the most amazing view of downtown New Orleans in the city, and these units are going to be sold to former residents of the Lower Ninth Ward who lost their homes when the levees failed after hurricane Katrina.”

When it comes to sustainable living beyond reusable grocery totes and eco friendly light bulbs, Galante is the go-to guru. She notes that one of her favorite moments of the year is when Entergy sends money back to Global Green because its New Orleans facility creates more energy than it uses. “Because we knew we were going to use it as a show home, it has not only every green bell and whistle that you can get in terms of energy efficiency, healthy indoor air quality, and sustainable or rapidly renewable or recycled materials, but it also has a very sophisticated monitoring system where we keep track of the energy created by the solar panels and the water collected in our cistern. We have a touch screen monitor that Yahoo put together for us where you can get more information about the products in the house. This is also available on our web site.”

The monitor shows energy flowing into the home from solar panels in real time so visitors can literally watch as energy comes in from the sun. Global Green estimates that if 50,000 of the homes destroyed by hurricane Katrina were rebuilt according to the green standards set by the design competition, New Orleans residents could save $38 million to $56 million in energy bills every year and eliminate over a half million ton of CO2—which is equivalent to taking 100,000 cars off the road. The potential for saving energy interested counselors for Rock ’n Roll Fantasy Camp as they toured New Orleans this summer. As former members of AC/DC, Megadeth, Winger, the Hudson Brothers, and the Cars walked through the home, their main question was, “How much more does this cost to build than a standard home?” The answer is, an average of 10 percent over the standard building cost. Considering the savings in energy bills from day one, it’s clear why green building is increasingly the focus of architects and community planners.

As far as ongoing involvement from Pitt and Angelina Jolie, “They’ve just been wonderfully supportive, and he’s been here many times over the years. He knew what it means to miss New Orleans.” Galante adds that, “The point of the project wasn’t just to provide homes, it was to teach New Orleaneans about green building and teach the professionals how to build green.”

National green development firms were partnered with locals as the project kicked off, with the mission to, “Find the best in the country, and pair them with somebody in New Orleans that they can pass this knowledge on so that they can then go forth and work on other projects,” Galante said. “And it’s already happened—most of the team that we’ve worked with on this project is now working on the Make it Right Project. So when Brad wanted to do this second project, instead of having to research every solar panel to figure out which was going to be the best, our architect said, ‘I already know what the best panel is because we just spent eight months figuring it out on the Global Green project.’ And time being money, that was just one less expense they had to worry about, and that was true for just dozens of decisions we made on this project. We’re pretty proud that we got the ball much further down the road than it would have been otherwise.”

Just one example is Global Green’s search for the highest level of wind resistant panels. They only found one manufacturer who would guarantee the wind rating on their solar panels to 150 miles an hour. Evergreen Panels are guaranteed for hurricane force winds, but other manufacturers are working on meeting that level of guarantee. So the visitor’s center features some of the first hurricane-proof solar panels used in the Gulf Coast.

Galante describes getting from point A to point B in the evolution of the Holy Cross project. “Even though it’s kind of crazy to sit here just over three years after the hurricane and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got one house built,’ you’ve got to take a step back and look at how far we have come. I’m told that in 90 percent of design competitions, all that work gets put up on a shelf. And we’re not a developer; we help developers, but Global Green doesn’t build things. So the easy thing would have been to say, ‘Here’s the plan—make it happen.’ It was just four little poster boards. Thankfully Brad was committed and he said: ‘You know what, we’ve got to build this thing.’”

The nonprofit is also working with greening schools throughout the area, and educating residents of the Gulf Coast and America about building green, affordable housing thanks to a $2 million grant from the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund.

Sitting on the Global Green show home’s rooftop deck, we look across the rooftop garden at downtown New Orleans and discuss green flooring options and cleaning products, including the amount of chemicals that are brought into a typical home on the bottom of your shoes. (I tuck my socks under the bench in case they’ve tracked in anything toxic.)

I’m aware that our house could use a great deal of greening, so it’s good to know that Global Green has put together a list of every green product available in New Orleans, and where the manufacturers are located. “Of course we’re trying to support local businesses and make it easy for people to get the products and get them in their homes and start cutting down on their utility bills,” Galante explains.

She’s managed one other typically New Orleans feat: “What we didn’t realize we had done until we had our first reception here was how great an entertaining house it is.”

It seems as if awareness of emerging green technologies has exploded, and Galante agrees. “Absolutely, and I think Global Green is responsible for a lot of it. But let’s face it, the hurricane was a shocking wakeup call for everybody here that we have to embrace sustainable living or we will not be sustained. And everybody was so open minded and receptive and frankly eager to embrace it after the storm, but didn’t really know how to go about doing that. So I think that this project was great at jump-starting the process to take from, ‘Yeah that sounds like a great idea,’ to ‘Here’s how you make that happen.’ It was great from a general education perspective to get Brad Pitt down here to work on this project, and obviously it was amazing that he was inspired to do another project in the Lower Ninth Ward. The entries for building the development included some very artistic ideas. Clearly a lot of creativity and love went into the project.” ✦