Looking On the Green Side
By: Stephanie Riegel | 10/12 Corridor | 08/01/2010
About a month into the calamitous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, GNO Inc. launched its latest economic development initiative. Called Green N.O., the ambitious plan hopes to establish New Orleans as the nation’s center for sustainable and environmentally friendly businesses.
Though the timing was purely coincidental, it couldn’t have been more fortuitous. Just as the nation’s airwaves were being saturated nightly with images of oil-soaked wildlife and delicate, dying marshes, the Green N.O. initiative held the promise of sustainable solutions being developed by the state that, few would argue, needs them most.
“The moment for this is now,” says Michael Hecht, CEO of GNO Inc., the economic development authority that works for 10 parishes in southeastern Louisiana. “Even before the oil spill we recognized this; now we do even more. This is our opportunity to diversify our economy while we save the environment.”
Like most economic development initiatives, Green N.O. sounds good on the surface. But there’s actually a lot of substance to it, and considerable work has already been done to cultivate businesses and job creation in this arena. Earlier this year, the state’s long-term economic development plan, called Blue Ocean, was released by the national consulting firm McKinsey and Co. It identifies several target industries that could all be grouped under the umbrella of sustainability or “green business,” including renewable energy, energy efficiency, nuclear power and water management.
“We need to cultivate new growth opportunities for Louisiana,” says Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret. “As we do that we will look for segments where we have opportunity to grow rapidly and can plausibly compete.”
Working along those same lines, Green N.O. will target businesses that specialize in water management/hydrology, sustainable building, renewable energy, coastal restoration and disaster mitigation. Like New Orleans’ highly successful digital media alliance, it will be a consortium that will bring together interested business, community and government leaders.
“This is not just feel good,” says Hecht. “This is do good. There is no question that New Orleans has an experience and a brand that is inextricably linked to the environment, and we have an opportunity to leverage that brand and experience.”
Experts believe there’s a lot of potential in the area. The McKinsey study estimated that some 90,000 jobs could be created in Louisiana over the next two decades in sustainable industries, the majority of which are likely to be in the Greater New Orleans and corridor regions. To that end, Green N.O. will carefully target its efforts. Specifically, it will help market the region by focusing on peer-to-peer positioning of Louisiana’s growing green sector. It will support legislation and incentives that will foster the growth of sustainable industries. It will collaborate with the state’s two- and four-year colleges and universities to ensure an adequate, skilled workforce. Finally, it will identify intersections of green economic opportunities and local competitive advantages.
The state’s higher education institutions are key to the success of Green N.O. In fact, the first major initiative under Green N.O. is a pilot program, “Growing a Green Workforce,” executed under a partnership between Southeastern Louisiana University, the Northshore Community Foundation and GNO Inc. The collaboration will take into account green, high-growth industries and the need for a strong workforce to support them. The product of the joint effort will be a “green curriculum” and “green diploma” for graduates, who will re-emerge ready for jobs in new sustainable industries.
Developing a workforce for jobs in emerging industries is sort of a chicken-and-egg conundrum, and at this point it’s not clear how many jobs are out there or how many trained workers are needed. As to how many businesses currently exist in the field in the corridor region, experts know it’s at least 100, and quite possibly nearly twice that. At Green N.O.’s kick off meeting in early June, more than 100 companies attended, despite bad weather and a preoccupation with the oil spill.
“I was stunned,” says Hecht of the turnout. “The level of interest is overwhelming.”
Many of the companies already up and running specialize in disaster mitigation. That has become a big business in these past few post-Katrina/Rita years. LSU, Tulane, ULL and SLU all now have disaster management degree programs and/or institutes. Each specializes in a different area, but all share the same goal, which is to learn from the experiences of recent man-made and environmental catastrophes so as to be better prepared to respond to them in the future.
“First we had 9-11, then Katrina, and now our oil spill, and with all of those the country took a look and said, ‘We’re not nearly as well prepared as we thought we were,’” says Dr. LuAnn White, director for Tulane’s Center for Applied Environmental Health, which has a Disaster Management Program. “There need to be more permanent structures and dedicated people in place. This helps fills that niche.”
With so much attention newly concentrated in this arena and in the related areas of sustainability and coastal restoration, opportunities for entrepreneurs are increasing. Just ask Crisca Weems. Her New Orleans firm, Future Proof LLC, has doubled in size every year since it was formed in early 2005, and Weems sees lots of opportunities on the horizon.
“This whole area is growing so fast, and there’s a lot of cross-fertilization between companies involved in this arena,” she says. “The oil spill is going to open that up even more.”
Future Proof specializes in sustainability consulting, which as a practical matter means the company works with developers, governments and environmental agencies on site-specific issues such as environmental conditions, water mitigation and eco-friendly landscaping.
“We have become specialists in eco-system and site-related work,” Weems says. “We work with anyone that has a stake in how a particular landscape will function over a long period of time, which is more important than ever.”
Weems believes Green N.O. will help her firm and others like it because of the synergy it will create and the attention it will focus on all issues related to the environment and sustainability.
“The most important thing it will do is create a political environment where these kinds of companies can thrive and do good work,” she says. “Long term, it will also mean job creation for the whole area.”
While no one expects Green N.O. to produce an economic bonanza for the region overnight, those involved in the effort predict rapid growth in the field of sustainable industries, and they say south Louisiana in general—and the corridor region in particular—is ideally suited to foster it.
“There’s no question the New Orleans area has an experience and a brand that is inextricably linked to the environment,” says Hecht. “We have an opportunity to leverage that brand and that experience.”
