The Birth of a Sustainability Effort

On Sunday November 15, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom strolled into the Concourse Exhibition Center, a 125,000 sq. ft. glass-and-steel structure resembling a giant greenhouse. He was expected to address the crowd at the eight annual Green Festival, which attracted an estimated "45,000 members of the Bioneers, Burning Man, Harmony Festival, and LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) community," according to the organizers.

After tarrying briefly before a baby clothing vendor (he is now the proud father of a two-month-old girl), the mayor took the stage. "Many San Franciscans aren't aware of what we're doing in their own city," he pointed out. "We have the most aggressive local climate action plan in the United States of America. It's not just a plan on paper. It's a plan that we've already demonstrated we have the capacity to deliver. We called to roll back our greenhouse gas emission by 20% below 1990 level by 2012. In essence, we have opted to go twice as far as the Kyoto protocol." (To learn more about San Francisco's climate plan, visit sfenvironment.org.)

Before him spread row after row of display tables and tradeshow booths, each boasting its own earth-friendly products: earrings and brooches made of dried palm seeds, placemats and purses made of bamboo strips, and Fair Trade-certified shirts and skirts from Uruguay and Guatemala, to name but a few.

Just beyond the exit between the restrooms and the organic food stands, somewhere outside in the parking lot stood a canvass tent, a junior pavilion in the shadow of the main one. That was the Green Building Pavilion, a prototype shelter equipped with photovoltaic panels, windmills, and solar-powered hydroponic displays.

That was the place where, over the course of three days, people would attend workshops and lectures on achieving sustainability and health through eco-friendly building supplies (by Ecohaus), economic returns and site construction logistics for solar power applications (by Sandbar Solar), and healthy interiors and simple architectural exteriors (by Ecostruction).

While the presence of solar equipment merchants and consultants didn't surprise anybody (the sunny side of the road consisted of Sun First! Solar, Real Goods Solar, groSolar, and Hybrid Light, LC), the booths occupied by the so-called socially responsible investors raised a few hopeful eyebrows and entrepreneurial heartbeats.

Cal Green Lending, for instance, described itself as "eco-friendly real estate financing." Vision Capital Investment Management reportedly focused on "socially and environmentally responsible investment management." They both competed with Urban Solutions, said to offer "comprehensive green services for small businesses."

Both eBay's Green Team and American Institute of Architects (AIA) are out in force. While the online auctioneer's staff encouraged shoppers to "be a force for good" by "turning oldies into goodies," AIA representatives urged builders to reduce carbon footprint.

The Festival began on November 13 and wrapped up on November 15. But after the tents are rolled up and stored away, after the booths are dismantled, the green consumers (comprising not just quaintessential dreadlocked, tie-dyed activists and eco-warriors but also conscientious beancounters in business suits) will continue to seek alternative means to live, work, and play.

The annual event gave me an opportunity to wade through a sea of fledging green businesses, to mentally and literally bookmark them in the festival catalog. The slim catalog (printed by a greenerprinter) offered a snapshot, a consolidated list of people and products relevent to sustainable living. But there are hundreds of thousands of new products and enterprises coming online everyday in the green frontier. Navigating through the thick of it to get to the handful you need won't be easy.

If, as the city's mayor has hinted, many San Franciscans don't know San Francisco's own climate action initiatives, then it's not too presumptuous to think many green ideas, technologies, products, and resources remain undiscovered.

To facilitate a free flow of green ideas, I'm joining the editorial team of TenLinks to create and maintain a sustainability index - modeled after the TenLinks.com directory. I'll be working with TenLinks founder, Roopinder Tara, to create a directory of the best and most useful sites for architects wishing to "turn green." I'll certainly draw inspiration from the socio-ecological concerns and goodwill I witnessed at the Green Festival  but I could use your help -- if you know of good green design websites, please let me know!

Reach me at kwong@tenlinks.com. 

I hope my contribution will in time outweigh my own personal carbon footprint.

Comments

[Laura Junig]

Not exactly green 'design' on a large scale, but more individual lifestyle 'design' changes that can make a difference if adopted on a larger scale are featured at http://bloggingreen.com . I would love for you to stop by and say hi-- and pass me on if you think I have potential!

Thanks for your efforts!

[hermes birkin1]

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University), Nov 28, 2011 -- The mad rush to put professional tools in the hands of non-professionals was given a face and a voice Monday afternoon when Autodesk CEO Carl Bass excitedly told of an inventor who flew his "aerocopter" to a height of 3,000 ft.