Build It Back Green (BIBG) is a free service offered to help you rebuild your home in a more energy efficient and healthy way. As fuel adjustments drive energy bills sky-high in Louisiana, Global Green USA is offering a new program for the public to get information and advice on how to significantly reduce their energy use and improve their health with energy-efficient, non-toxic green building products and materials. Build It Back Green will make it easier for Louisiana residents to learn how to find and install simple, cost-effective green products into their homes.
Through Build It Back Green's website, Global Green is offering a comprehensive directory of green products and where to find them, information on how to take advantage of some of the statewide and federal incentives for green building, and other useful green building tips and advice. The program will also launch city-wide workshops tailored to specific neighborhood needs, and encourage community use of both the Global Green Resource Center on Carondelet Street and the Holy Cross Project's entirely sustainable Global Green House in the Lower 9th ward. Global Green hopes to educate and motivate those looking to not just rebuild their homes to be more energy-efficient, but to also be more storm resistant.
Build it Back Green aims to increase awareness of affordable, accessible green rebuilding options to suit every budget. With funding from Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF) and Surdna Foundation, Global Green USA is now offering materials and programs which will emphasize steps that all citizens can take to reduce both their utility bills and carbon footprints. Some suggested home improvements, which can be made by both homeowners and renters alike, are not pricey but have proven to be cost-effective.
Simple, easy and affordable options such as replacing regular light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent ones (CFLs) and updating homes with proper wall and ceiling insulation can increase efficiency and effectiveness of lighting, heating and cooling systems. Applying radiant barriers to upper levels of the home can deflect up to 97% of the sun's rays and significantly reduce monthly energy bills while increasing air quality. Such small-scale improvements can collectively take larger steps toward reducing the total energy usage of homes and buildings, now one third of total U.S. energy consumption.
Global Green's new Green Vendor Directory is also an important breakthrough for New Orleanians, with literally hundreds of merchants in the immediate vicinity listed by product type. The directory also offers national alternatives when no local merchants are available.
The Build It Back Green program expects to reach thousands of New Orleans residents through a combination of the Road Home program, the website, the Global Green House in Holy Cross, the Resource Center, seminars and consultations. This program will have the broadest reach of any of Global Green's initiatives so far, giving residents immediate access to "green tools" they can use to make a difference in their own homes.
