U.S. Green Building Council Honors Brad Pitt’s Make It Right as the ‘Largest and Greenest Single Family Community in the World’
September 24, 2009
U.S. Green Building Council President, CEO & Founding Chair Rick Fedrizzi today declared that the neighborhood being built by Make It Right New Orleans, the post-Katrina housing initiative launched by actor Brad Pitt, is the “largest and greenest community of single-family homes in the world” at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York.
Make It Right, which was announced as a “commitment” at the 2007 CGI meeting, has already LEED Platinum certified 13 homes and is building at least 150 sustainable, storm-resistant LEED Platinum homes in a Lower 9th Ward neighborhood of New Orleans wiped out by the Hurricane Katrina and that
was nearest to the disastrous breech of the Industrial Canal levee.
“Through Make It Right we are reminded that our work is not about buildings, but rather about the people within them,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council. “In facing our nation’s unprecedented economic and environmental crises, we must change the way the
places in which we live, work, learn and play are built and operated. What we’re seeing with green building goes beyond energy-efficiency to a transformation of entire communities – and the lives of the people who live there. Make It Right has proved that green building can be both affordable and high performing.”
After the presentation of the award, President Clinton, Brad Pitt, Rick Fedrizzi, Make It Right Executive Director Tom Darden, Architect William McDonough and Dr. Nawal Al-Hosany, Director of Sustainability, Masdar City, UAE International, addressed the progress Make It Right has made, as well as how green building should play a role in revitalizing the nation’s economy and tackling environmental challenges, in a session moderated by White House Domestic Policy Adviser Melody Barnes.
