Networking at the Conference

One of the primary goals of our conference is to get everyone in the green building scene under one roof.  We want people to bounce ideas off of each other and to meet new people!  That is why we will be COLOR CODING THE NAME TAGS so you can identify everyone better!  Here’s how it’s going to go:

Students, Scholars and SC Members: The sky is the limit.. welcome to BLUE.

Speakers: Hope your material is nice and juicy for us…you will be PEACH.
Press: Because we can’t provide you with thank you roses… you are RED.

Architects and Technical Professionals: The color of creativity… PURPLE.
General Admission/Misc: Ah, mother earth and all her children.. alas, GREEN!

More exciting news, as it comes…

Want to Volunteer?

We need people to volunteer to help out at the conference to make sure everything runs smoothly.  Volunteers will have specific duties to fulfill but are welcome to attend all sessions when they are not needed at their position.  All volunteers will also receive a free Green Rebuilding of New Orleans t-shirt!  If you’re interested, email Jennifer.Grosso@Sierraclub.org  ASAP!

These same T-Shirts (with our beautiful green building logo/title and list of sponsors) will be available for sale at the conference for just $10 cash or check.  I’ll post a picture of them once we get them in!

On-Site Registration

The time is near!  The Green Rebuilding of New Orleans Conference is THIS Sunday and Monday!  

For those of you who have not yet registered, on-site registration will be available.  However, we do have a LIMITED number of available seats on Sunday.  If you would like to register for MONDAY ONLY, you may do so with cash or check at our registration table on the 16th floor of the Doubletree Hotel between 730am and 9am on Monday morning ONLY. We are not limiting attendance on Monday so everyone is encouraged to attend!

Heads up…!

We will be checking people in by type of registration.  Please check in at your appropriate table (General, Professional/AIA, Student/Sierra Club or Scholarship) ONLY IF YOU HAVE ALREADY REGISTERED!  

There will be a separate line for ON-SITE registration. 

For those applying for continuing credits, please bring your member identification materials.

For those who are students, please bring your current and valid student ID.

Thanks and we look forward to seeing everyone there!

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu will give the keynote address on Monday at 12 noon!

As part of his creative and entrepreneurial style of governing, Lt. Governor Landrieu launched the Cultural Economy Initiative. This initiative is designed to create jobs through Louisiana’s unique culture – our food, music, arts, film and architecture. Louisiana’s cultural economy employs more than 140,000 Louisianans.   Through this initiative, Landrieu pushed an aggressive legislative agenda, passing landmark legislation to put music and the arts in every Louisiana public school as well as tax policy legislation to incent local municipalities to create cultural districts. 

Cognizant that Louisiana had to explore new economic paths, Landrieu set out to diversify Louisiana’s economy by tapping into the state’s culture and creativity.  Landrieu launched the Cultural Economy Initiative to grow jobs through Louisiana film, food, music, the arts and other creative industries.  Today, Louisiana’s culture accounts for 144,000 jobs. 

Seeking innovative, public-private partnerships, Landrieu has promoted citizen service and social entrepreneurship as powerful tools for community renewal.  Landrieu launched the Louisiana Office of Social Entrepreneurship, the first of its kind in the nation, positioning Louisiana as a hospitable place for social innovators. “Social Entrepreneurship” uses cutting-edge business models to find new ways to solve old social problems.

Landrieu also manages Louisiana’s national service grants and programs, including AmeriCorps.  In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike and Gustav, more than one million people have volunteered in Louisiana. 

Landrieu’s love of Louisiana will continue to move him to the places where he can best serve.  As always, he will be guided by his strong values, his governing principles and the spirit of innovation that are the hallmarks of his time in public service.

Attention Media!

If you are a member of the press, we will set you up with a press pass and free registration!  Email jennifer.grosso@sierraclub.org for more details.

NEW FEATURED SPEAKER: MICHAEL McDONOUGH!

The Bus Tour (which still has tickets available!) can only accommodate some of our guests, as seating is limited.  Because the tour is optional, we will be playing the PBS Series “E2 Desgin: The Economics of Being Environmentally Conscious” while the Tour is going on.  Narrated by our very own Make It Right Celeb, Brad Pitt, the series focuses not only on the specifics of green building, but how these practices can be used to our advantage economically as well as environmentally.  Of the visionary architects to be interviewed in the series is Michael McDonough, an award-winning New York architect who has done such great work including the designing of the e-House and participating in urban planning think-tanks in New York City after the 9-11 tragedies.   We are pleased to announce that Michael McDonough will be joining us as one of our featured speakers!!  Michael will be speaking on Sunday afternoon following the E2 viewing. 

Michael McDonough

BIO

Michael McDonough AIA, NCARB, USGBC, Hon. FIGP is an award-winning architect, industrial designer, and author who designs and consults on environmentally appropriate systems and advanced building technologies.  He specializes in zero-energy/zero-carbon footprint buildings and has designed a wide range of projects including offices, airports, galleries, multi-media environments, resort buildings, multifamily residences, shops, and custom residences, as well as furniture, exhibits, and jewelry.

McDonough believes that traditional design and modern design—nature and science—can be advantageously synthesized, and that new types of buildings and a broad range of technologies will accordingly emerge. He has published over 80 articles and two books on architecture and design. Long an active artistic collaborator, he has also exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide, and worked with painters, sculptors, writers, designers, filmmakers, and scientists, notably award-winning author Tom Wolfe, industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger, lighting designer Howard Brandston, and fashion designer Steven Sprouse. 

In the field of energy research McDonough has collaborated with New York State’s Energy Research and Development Authority in the development of an ACEC Diamond-award-winning zero-energy/zero carbon footprint air conditioning system, and is currently working with industry professionals on the development of advanced lighting and high-value/high-production agricultural systems.

Educated at the University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania, and a cofounder of the experimental Bamboo Research Initiative at Rhode Island School of Design, McDonough has taught and lectured internationally. He has also designed and built e-House, a net zero-energy/zero carbon design and building science laboratory, a house the international press has termed “the most sustainable building in the world” having “the coolest rooms on the planet.”

Insider’s Look: The Brainstorming Workshop on Day 2

At the Green Rebuilding of New Orleans conference, we want to ensure that our work does not end after closing remarks.  Throughout the conference, we will be encouraging participants to use what they learn about the current green building scene in New Orleans to think about the future of the city.  At the end of the two days, there will be a 2 hour brainstorming workshop for each of the three tracks (Green Building, Green Jobs, Urban Agriculture/Education).  

How do you effectively brainstorm in a group of 50+ people?  The Institute of Cultural Affairs’ Technology of Participation program specializes in group facilitation.  The consensus workshop method provides groups with a method for coming to consensus in a short period of time by using a collective integrating thinking process.  The professional facilitators will use this method to extract 3 major calls to action from each track’s discussions.  

At the end of the conference, the 9 platforms developed in the workshops will be available to “sign onto” as organizations or as individuals.  We will be posting them on this website and releasing them to the public as an official product of the participants of the conference.  

For more information regarding the Technology of Participation, please visit http://topfacilitation.net/index.cfm
 or http://facilitativeleader.com.

Thank You Poohbah Group!

 

The Poohbah Group, a low-cost recycling service for both business and residential collections in New Orleans, will be providing recycling throughout the conference to make sure we minimize waste!  Visit their website to see how they can help you with your recycling needs at http://poohbahgroup.com 

 

Thanks Poohbah!

From Louisiana Green Scene Magazine- November Issue

“After Katrina, the residents of New Orleans knew the city would never be quite the same again. The city needed to be built back up from the ground, and it needed to do so with limited resources and an unstable political environment.  If there could be one glimmer of fortune coming from the disaster, it would be the blank slate that we then had to rebuild on.  Non-profit organizations, architects, contractors, residents, government and even celebrities came together not only to build back the city, but to build it back strategically and sustainably to better protect the city’s future.  

Darryl Malek-Wiley, having been involved in the city’s environmental scene for over 25 years, was keenly aware of this situation.  And so he called together the members of the New Orleans green building scene to participate in a conference called “The Green Rebuilding of New Orleans: Four Years Post-Katrina”.  The 2-day conference will take place on November 8^th and 9^th at the Doubletree Hotel on Canal Street and welcomes people of all backgrounds to come, learn, and participate in the rebuilding of New Orleans’ future.

The conference organizers are happy to say that there will be representatives from over 60 organizations in the greater New Orleans area in attendance at the conference.  There are approximately 40 speakers lined up for the three tracks: Green Building, Green Jobs, and Urban Agriculture/Education.  A new featured speaker has been recently added to the line-up:  Michael McDonough.  McDonough was part of urban planning think tanks after the 9-11 tragedy.  He is also the designer of the e-House, a net-zero energy, net-zero carbon house that has been referred to as the most sustainable building in the world.  The award winning and visionary architect will be speaking about the potential of green building in New Orleans.

Another recent addition to the conference agenda is the release of a Request For Proposal by EnviRENEW, a green building initiative of the Salvation Army.  The project focuses on long-term affordability by increasing energy efficiency and thereby lowering occupancy expenses that will enable greater long-term savings for low-income households.  EnviRENEW is looking for neighborhoods to volunteer to be one of the 5 pilot Green Zones for the project to begin. 

Perhaps the most exciting part of this conference is its emphasis on the future- on creating tangible goals for the upcoming years, including the mayoral election.  The Institute of Cultural Affairs’ Technology of Participation program has provided professional group facilitators to direct the brainstorming workshop that will take place at the end of the conference.  These facilitators are highly specialized in the consensus workshop method, a collective integrative thinking process designed to extract common ideas or goals from a large and diverse group without any interference by the facilitator.  The facilitators will follow participants throughout the tracks, collecting the main ideas from different sessions.  At the end of the two days, they will compile these ideas and attendees will discuss them in smaller groups and with facilitative help, will eventually come to a consensus.  The platforms developed in these groups will be a common consensus of all of the attendees of the Green Rebuilding of New Orleans and will be publically released after they are determined.

Standard admission is $25, and all are encouraged to register.  To sign up or for more information concerning the conference events, please see the conference web site at http://rebuildNOLAgreen.com”

Bus Tour Availability

Our Sunday afternoon bus tour will take you on an interactive ride through the green building projects in New Orleans making stops at:

• The Wilson School in Broadmoor
• Holly Grove Market and Farm
• Home Again Project in Gentilly
• Make-It-Right Houses
• Bayou Bienvenue
• Global Green Houses

Seats on the bus are limited but STILL AVAILABLE as of today, October 16th.  A ticket is $10 per person and includes an excellent boxed lunch. Register to Attend and book your seat today!

 

About Your Tour Guide:

Darryl Malek-Wiley is a veteran of the environmental justice movement. He has worked for over 30 years with communities along the Mississippi River to fight toxic pollution and protect peoples’ health.

Malek-Wiley joined the Sierra Club Environmental Justice Program in June 2004 to support the efforts of Louisiana environmental justice groups on issues including toxics, pollution and environmental health. He has been dedicated to protecting Louisiana’s environment and people throughout his career. He was a key organizer of the Great Toxics March from Baton Rouge to New Orleans in 1988. This march defined the problem of toxic emissions in the “cancer alley” and launched the campaign for improvement that continues today.

Malek-Wiley has worked for the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, Louisiana Environmental Action Network and the Gulf Coast Tenant Organization among others. He has served as the Chair of the New Orleans Group of the Sierra Club, President of the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and a member of both the Sierra Club’s Ethnic Diversity Task Force and Hazardous Material Committee. He has studied and educated people on toxics, air and water pollution, environmental health, and sociology at the local, state, regional, national and international level.