Green businesses line up for S.F.’s stamp of approval

San Francisco Business Times – June 15, 2007
by Elizabeth Browne

San Francisco’s Green Business Program is drawing increasing interest from city businesses eager to gain a measure of environmental credibility as consumers and clients become more discerning about sustainability issues.

Seventy-two small and medium-sized businesses have been recognized as green by the city of San Francisco since the program’s inception two years ago.

Another 50 have enrolled in the program and are in the process of making their operations more environmentally friendly, according to the city’s green business coordinator, Sushma Dhulipala.

The program targets smaller businesses, for whom consultants and other resources for greening operations might be out of reach. Businesses enroll in the program through a web site, www.sfgreenbiz.org. The city then checks on whether the business has a clean record in terms of health code, fire code, air quality and waste water discharge. Businesses are then given a checklist of possible steps appropriate for their sector, Dhulipala said. The checklists cover recycling, waste reduction, energy and water conservation, and pollution prevention.

The city provides free on-site assessments to help companies become greener, with staff coming from offices such as the Department of Public Health and the Public Utilities Commission.

The time it takes to be recognized as a green business varies, Dhulipala said, noting that she’s had a business complete the steps in as few as three weeks, and hotels that take as long as a year. “Some of the businesses receive recognition sooner than others, based on ZIP code,” she said, which is how site visits are scheduled.

The program has generated enough interest from city businesses that sometimes there is a wait of a few weeks for site visits, Dhulipala said. “We’re looking at more and more demand, more enrollments.”

The city is looking into similar programs run by Monterey and Santa Monica, which contract out their green business certification programs to nonprofits, but Dhulipala said there are are no concrete plans to outsource the program yet.

The San Francisco Green Business Program is part of the regional program coordinated by the Association of Bay Area Governments. There are six other county programs: Napa, Sonoma, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and Santa Clara. In the 10 years the ABAG program has been in place, 985 businesses have been certified green in those counties. San Mateo and Solano counties will begin pilot green business programs this summer.