green light new orleans

CSED: sustain the nine

The Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development (CSED) is proud to be the official sponsor of Historic Green New Orleans. Since its formation in January 2007 as a project of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, the CSED has quickly become an integral part of the community and its future.

CSED’s mission is to encourage restorative rebuilding, sustain natural systems, support community leadership, and stimulate civic engagement through an informed, protected, engaged, repopulated Lower Ninth Ward. Through these initiatives, they hope to create a cohesive, prosperous, sustainable community that is climate-neutral by 2020 and carbon-neutral by 2030.

Focus areas include the following:

  • Link returning residents with sustainable building resources and training opportunities on restoring their homes
  • Assist the community through bulk purchasing of low or no cost sustainable technologies and materials
  • Develop parks and community gardens
  • Take positive action on behalf of Lower 9’s unique natural systems, especially to protect its wetlands

Installing rooftop solar panels and radiant barriers for Lower 9 homes, securing sustainable building materials, and replacing thousands of conventional light bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescents... These are just a few of the CSED’s growing list of green accomplishments. The Center has also been instrumental in neighborhood-wide tree planting, home weatherization, workshops on energy efficiency, and restoration of Bayou Bienvenue, a cypress tupelo wetland which forms the northern border of the Lower Ninth Ward.

Origins of the Center lie with the neighborhood recovery planning, begun immediately after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and published as “Sustainable Restoration: Holy Cross Historic District & Lower 9th”. Start-up funding was made possible by MercyCorps, the Blue Moon Fund, Tulane-Xavier Center for Bio-Environmental Research, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and the Sierra Club. Today, the non-profit is housed in a small temporary office behind Greater Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church at 5130 Chartres St. in the Holy Cross neighborhood.

For more information, please contact Kathy Muse, Warrenetta Banks or Pam Dashiell.