This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and Verite News, a nonprofit news organization with a mission to produce in-depth journalism in underserved communities in the New Orleans area.
As thousands of architects and planners flocked to New Orleans in 2014 for the world’s largest sustainable design conference, the city saw a chance to prove it belonged in the green building big leagues.
City leaders announced at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo that New Orleans would join Minneapolis, Seattle, and a vanguard of other cities in developing a program requiring large building owners to track and disclose their energy use.
New Orleans’ embrace of “energy benchmarking” drew praise at the conference, with one green building expert declaring that the city was “paving the way” for the rest of the country to follow.
But New Orleans lost momentum, waiting more than a decade before finally approving its benchmarking ordinance on Thursday. In... Read more
