For Immediate Release
February 27, 2008
NEIGHBORWORKS® AMERICA ANNOUNCES NATIONAL
GREEN BUILDING INITIATIVE AT “GO GREEN NOW”
TRAINING SYMPOSIUM
Initiative Supported by $750,000 Grant from The Home Depot Foundation
ATLANTA – NeighborWorks America today announced its new national green initiative during the luncheon keynote presentation at “Go Green Now,” a one-day symposium hosted by NeighborWorks Training Institute and held in Atlanta that focused on green building and sustainability.
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| Home Depot Foundation President Caffarelli and NeighborWorks America CEO Kenneth D. Wade |
Supported by a $750,000 grant from The Home Depot Foundation, the goal of the initiative is to decrease the environmental impact of the NeighborWorks America headquarters and support its nationwide network of community development organizations in bringing “green” tools, building techniques and healthy environmental impact to urban, suburban and rural communities across America.
“It’s imperative that we continue our role as a leader in the community development industry and further the green efforts of this industry by examining our own practices and becoming even better stewards of our environment,” said Ken Wade, CEO of NeighborWorks America. “With the support of our industry partners like The Home Depot Foundation, we are able to support the NeighborWorks network even more as we focus on creating healthy and sustainable communities.”
In a call to, “Think Green. Act Green”, the NeighborWorks initiative takes a three-pronged approach to create green practices and outcomes that will ultimately benefit the low- and moderate-income families and communities that NeighborWorks and its more than 230 affiliates serve.
- Reduce Carbon Footprint. After benchmarking the environmental impact of its national headquarters, NeighborWorks America plans to reduce waste, improve efficiencies and better leverage its resources in order to reduce its carbon footprint by ten percent over the next three years. Initial efforts to green the NTI conference began the progress toward this goal.
- Green the Network. NeighborWorks America will deliver focused technical assistance, green training and financial support to its network of affiliates over the next four years in order to reach 100,000 low- to moderate-income households.
- Initiate Local Green Education. Utilizing its existing Community Building and Organizing programs, NeighborWorks America will engage at least fifty communities across the country in a meaningful dialogue on how to be greener communities. NeighborWorks America will provide the community development industry with information and education to help create momentum surrounding green outcomes.
To push these goals forward, NeighborWorks America will launch several grant programs to support current greening activities by network affiliates. For example, grants will aid new construction, rehabilitation and renovations that integrate green building components. Also, an energy efficiency program will train multifamily property owners on how to evaluate and improve energy conservation for their properties; grants will support the implementation of conservation measures.
“The Home Depot Foundation is proud to support NeighborWorks’ and its emphasis to “Think Green. Act Green”, said Kelly Caffarelli, president of The Home Depot Foundation. “Through the initiative, NeighborWorks affiliate organizations will be able to help our neighbors of modest means purchase healthy and efficient homes that will be affordable not just to move into, but to live in over the long term.”
The Home Depot Foundation is dedicated to building affordable homes for working families that are healthy to live in and affordable to own. Through the incorporation of responsible design, homes built with durable and quality materials are more energy and water efficient, have good indoor air quality, and are overall a safe and healthy space to live. Since its formation, The Home Depot Foundation has granted $70 million to nonprofit organizations and supported the development of more than 50,000 affordable, healthy homes.
Got to www.nw.org/green to learn more about the NeighborWorks green initiative.
About NeighborWorks America
NeighborWorks America creates opportunities for people to improve their lives and strengthen their communities by providing access to homeownership and to safe and affordable rental housing. To date, we have assisted nearly 850,000 low- to moderate-income families with their housing needs. Much of our success is achieved through our support of the NeighborWorks network more than 235 community development organizations working in 4,400 urban, suburban and rural communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. In the last five years, NeighborWorks organizations have generated more than $12.4 billion in reinvestment in these communities. NeighborWorks America is the nation’s leading trainer of community development and affordable housing professionals. www.nw.org.
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