Zoetic's Jerome Ringo and Mayor LaToya Cantrell in Dubai.
Following her participation in an international climate change conference in Dubai last December, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced she had signed a major new deal with a private company to significantly reduce the city’s carbon emissions and boost its drinking water and energy efficiencies.
The announcement was a public relations win for Cantrell after more than a year of being criticized for maintaining a busy travel schedule without any major results to show for them.
The Dec. 8 press release outlined the ambitious project the city would undertake with Zoetic Inc., an Ohio-based HV/AC coolant manufacturer. Described in the release as “a leading U.S.-based climate impact company with a portfolio of carbon reduction solutions,” Zoetic would be tasked with “increasing sustainability, including significant carbon reduction and water and energy resiliency.”
But more than three months later, the only thing Cantrell has to show for the trip remains the press release. In fact, internal administration documents indicate that after an initial flurry of behind-the-scenes activity, the project has completely halted.
Those documents also show Cantrell appears to have made the deal unilaterally within hours of meeting Zoetic’s founder. According to these records, Cantrell never consulted staff experts back in New Orleans before signing it, and the press release caught even her top climate-related aides off guard.
With city staffers scrambling to figure out what the agreement actually meant for the city, several people involved raised questions about the Zoetic deal, including one city employee who called the company “sketchy.”
Likewise, Cantrell never discussed the agreement with the New Orleans City Council, though she needs their approval prior to signing such an agreement. That move itself could have likely violated the city’s longstanding public bidding rules governing large contracts.
Cantrell’s office did not respond to a detailed set of questions about how and why she signed the agreement, under what authority she signed it and whether work on the project is continuing. Likewise, Zoetic ignored multiple emails and calls for comment.
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On Nov. 30, Cantrell’s office announced she was headed to Dubai for the United Nations’ COP 28 Climate Change Conference. In the press release, Cantrell described the meeting as a chance to join “various leaders in this space as we take a strong, science-based stance towards combatting the ongoing climate crisis."
Emails between Cantrell and Zoetic Vice President for Global Marketing Ashleigh Jacubec indicate she first met Zoetic co-founder Jerome Ringo Dec. 1. That discussion was not on her official schedule for the trip, but it went well enough for Zoetic to draft a proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreement between the company and the city to take on a series of climate-related projects.
“We are so excited about the prospect of working together with New Orleans to create a more sustainable and prosperous future,” Jacubec wrote Cantrell the next day, adding “to ensure that we have an efficient and effective partnership, we’ve prepared an MOU on behalf of Zoetic for your consideration.”
Under the MOU, Zoetic would provide the city with a “comprehensive program” covering energy efficiency, energy generation and water treatment; deliver an “initial energy refrigerant installation at no cost to the City;” and determine “water and base-load power needs” that could be “supplied by innovative solutions including the leading hydrogen generation technology,” among other items.
Two and a half hours later, Cantrell responded to Jacubec, saying she was “excited about the opportunity to solidify our partnership” and that she and her team would “work to make a signing happen on Tuesday.”
The next morning Zach Monroe, then-external affairs manager for the city's Office of Resilience and Sustainability, emailed Jacubec proposing a signing ceremony for the following morning.
Cantrell touted the agreement on her Instagram page as providing “both economic and environmental benefits from more sustainable energy and water resources” that would "help ensure long-term resilience for our city.”
What, exactly, Cantrell agreed to when she signed the agreement Dec. 5 is unclear given how vague much of the language is. In fact, what Zoetic actually does is not entirely clear, beyond producing an alternative refrigerant for use in HV/AC systems.
But one concrete part of the agreement says Zoetic would replace the refrigerant in all city-operated buildings with its own product.
Zoetic’s site lists a number of “solutions” — refrigerants, hydrogen, energy and water — but aside from its refrigerant work none of them include anything beyond vague, standard issue corporate talking points on each topic.
A patent for their refrigerant obtained by Gambit appears to show it is a blend between natural oils — think canola — and coolants like R-134a (which is commonly used in car air conditioning systems) that the company claims is more energy efficient than standard refrigerants.
Following the signing, which included a photo op, the two sides began work on crafting a press release announcing the deal, which Zoetic planned to release Dec. 8 or the following Monday.
After a round of revisions, the two sides seemed in agreement, according to emails, though a member of Cantrell’s team did try to push up the announcement.
On Thursday, Dec. 7, Lesley Thomas, Cantrell’s deputy communications director, wrote to Jacubec, “Can we post it today? If not, how soon can we post?” Jacubec recommended sticking to the morning of Dec. 8, when it was ultimately sent out by the company and the city.
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Meanwhile back in New Orleans, it appears none of Cantrell’s staff or advisors had any idea what she was doing in Dubai.
On Dec. 8, Anne Rheams, the environmental outreach manager for the Office of Resilience and Sustainability, forwarded the press release to other members of the office. Sophia Winston, the city’s energy policy and program manager, responded, “I saw! I’d love to actually know what this means outside of COP28.” Greg Nichols, the city’s deputy chief resilience officer, suggested contacting Monroe, who proposed the signing ceremony.
Four days later, Carrie Black, the chief sustainability and resilience officer in Orange County, Florida, reached out to Nichols about the agreement, asking for more information about the city’s work with Zoetic.
Nichols replied, “I’ll be honest that this was a bit of a surprise for us, I think they approach the Mayor at COP and she committed the City to this work, but we have no experience with them to date ... I haven’t even had a chance to read the MOU in full yet.”
Nichols then forwarded Black’s email to Monroe, adding simply “Lol.”
On the same day, Green Coast Enterprises Vice President Joe Ryan, whose company supplies much of the services covered under the contract, emailed Nichols and Winston to ask if they knew anything about the agreement. “Sounds like snake oil to me,” he wrote.
In response, Nichols wrote, “Not a whole lot! ... I haven’t had a chance to read the MOU yet, but I share your skepticism.”
But Zoetic and the mayor were already moving full steam ahead. In a Dec. 14 email, Cantrell directed Nichols and Chief Administrative Officer for Infrastructure Joe Threat to begin working with the company to implement the Zoetic agreement.
A month later, as staff were continuing to try and figure out what exactly the city had been committed to, federal grants manager Howard Nobles III emailed Nichols. In a Jan. 8 email, Nobles explained he was having trouble finding information on Zoetic’s website and raised concerns with the company’s competency.
“If they can’t get a web page to work do we trust them with refrigerant,” Nobles wrote.
Nichols responded, “No, none of the links seem to work when I click on them. Sketchy.”
When Nobles noted that former U.S. Rep. and failed 2020 presidential candidate Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) was working for the company – and was the only reason Columbus, Ohio, officials had signed a similar MOU with the company – Nichols joked, “Guess that’s what former presidential candidates get themselves into ...”
Meanwhile, Zoetic and city officials were still trying to set a date for a meeting during which the city would provide the company with a list of all the buildings it operates to begin work on the project. After several false starts, the two sides appear to have settled on meeting in early January.
But days before that meeting was scheduled to take place, Nichols took the unusual step of reaching out to the city attorney’s office. In a Jan. 2 email to Deputy City Attorney Tracy Tyler, Nichols wrote “I wanted to flag this MOU that the Mayor signed in Dubai for COP28 ... can we find some time to discuss?”
It's unclear why Nichols felt it necessary to reach out to Tyler. By the end of January, however, when city and Zoetic officials met, members of the attorney's office were brought in to participate.
Meanwhile, Nichols continued to have doubts about the project. In fact, as recently as Feb. 8, Nichols wrote in an email to Green Coast’s Joe Ryan, “I got a little more info on this ... still very skeptical, but curious on your thoughts.”
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Where the project stands now is unknown. Neither the mayor’s office nor Zoetic responded to multiple requests for comment. However, the City Attorney’s Office did tell Gambit that the public records request which uncovered these emails and other documents was current as of March 7 — meaning that there hadn’t been written communication, and presumably work, done on it since early February.
One complication may be that it appears to be illegal. Section 9-314(3) of the New Orleans City Charter requires the mayor to publicly publish proposed MOUs and submit them to the city council for approval prior to signing them.
And there are other potential legal hurdles as well. While Zoetic agreed in the deal to provide the first round of its refrigerant for free, maintenance and resupplies would almost certainly come at a cost — which could run into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, depending on the length of a given contract.
Since its refrigerant is proprietary, that would make Zoetic the sole source for it. But city procurement rules would seem to require such work to be put up for public bid. And whether moving forward with the agreement could potentially violate any existing contracts with Green Coast Enterprises or other contractors also remains an open question.
What is known is that her office announced the deal at the same time Cantrell’s penchant for travel had come under renewed scrutiny. She had returned just three weeks earlier from a trip to Kenya, and the state’s ethics board was considering sanctions against her for her use of first-class plane tickets at taxpayer expense.
Since taking office, Cantrell has left the city on dozens of trips, ranging from meetings in Washington, D.C., with federal officials to speaking engagements and music festivals in France and Switzerland.
Some of the criticism has centered around the fact that, aside from a handful of largely symbolic “sister city” agreements with local governments in other countries, her extensive travel schedule had produced little in the way of tangible benefits for the city.
The announcement of the deal with Zoetic came less than 24 hours after Gambit published a commentary criticizing Cantrell’s travel — and the lack of substantive results for the city. It produced a round of positive stories in local news outlets and gave the mayor a public relations win.
But the Zoetic agreement is also the latest in a growing list of “wins” touted by the mayor that have either failed to materialize entirely or fell apart when it came time to implement them.
Mayor Cantrell and other city officials with Magic Johnson
For instance, in 2022 the council passed a new “Clean Fleet” ordinance, requiring the city to purchase low-emission vehicles starting in 2023. Despite being part of the mayor’s broader “climate success” pitch, her administration essentially ignored the law and in 2023 spent $50 million in federal aid on gas guzzling vehicles.
Meanwhile, Cantrell’s “smart cities” push to bring broader wifi access to New Orleans, started with lots of fanfare — and even featured former NBA star Magic Johnson. But it ultimately fell apart less than a year after being announced and devolved into an embarrassing pay-to-play scandal involving some of her top advisors.
In other instances, these failed initiatives have come with a significant price tag. The Cantrell administration’s plan to move City Hall to the Municipal Auditorium not only collapsed in the face of intense public backlash to the idea of messing with Congo Square in 2021 but also put $38 million in FEMA rehab funding in jeopardy.
Likewise, earlier this month the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Inspector General found the administration badly managed a $141 million green infrastructure grant. That funding was mishandled to the point where not only have promised improvements not occurred but, in some cases, the changes have worsened the situation.