Leader of SaMo-Based Global Green Joins Garcetti Administration

Written by City News Service

A prominent environmental advocate who played a role in rebuilding post-Katrina New Orleans has joined Mayor Eric Garcetti's administration as Los Angeles' chief sustainability officer, the mayor's office announced Friday.

Matt Petersen will join Garcetti's office and step down as president of Global Green USA, a nonprofit that led an effort to build sustainable homes and apartment buildings in New Orleans communities destroyed by flooding during Hurricane Katrina. The effort drew additional attention through participation by celebrities like actor Brad Pitt.

Garcetti called the 46-year-old Petersen "one of the nation's leading environmental champions and clean energy advocates."

"Matt has long been an innovator in working with the business and environmental communities to create more energy efficient and sustainable neighborhoods and cities, including right here in Los Angeles," Garcetti said.

Based in Santa Monica, Global Green, was led by Petersen for the past 19 years, also worked with the Los Angeles Unified School District on a $15 billion green building policy that involved more than 60 schools.

In 2002, Petersen worked with then-Councilman Garcetti to develop a green building policy for the city of Los Angeles.

"Cities are on the front lines of solutions to climate change and creating a clean energy economy, and I look forward to bringing my passion and experience to help Mayor Garcetti create a vibrant and greener City of Los Angeles," Petersen said in a release.

Petersen also served on an affordable housing task force formed by then Councilman Mike Feuer, now the City Attorney, and as a member of the "green ribbon" task force under former Mayor James Hahn, pushed for the city to generate 1 percent of its energy using solar power.

Among his first tasks with the city is to review each department head's sustainability goals, Petersen told City News Service.

Sustainability was among four major criteria the mayor asked the city's more than 35 department heads to report back on when he told them to re-apply for their jobs. General managers and directors, as well as the police and fire chiefs, needed to submit a memo describing how they would create a "more sustainable and livable city."

Petersen said he will also be working with the Department of Water and Power on continuing to develop its clean energy investments.

Petersen, a Santa Monica resident and California-native, will stay on with Global Green in a volunteer capacity as a member of the organization's board of advisers. Global Green USA is the American chapter of Green Cross International, which was started by former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993.

Petersen's job with the city officially starts Aug. 26.