• Dreaming of a Green Christmas
    Once again, SF Environment and Friends of the Urban Forest are offering city residents the chance to bring a street tree home for the holidays.  Afterwards, we’ll plant it in a deserving neighborhood, so your Christmas tree lives on as a gift to the community.

  • City fleet goes biodiesel
    In an effort to protect public health and curb global warming gasses, Mayor Newsom directed that all city vehicles running on diesel fuel convert to biodiesel by the end of 2007.  Even better, the conversion was completed more than a month ahead of schedule.

  • Kentucky fried Muni
    San Francisco is giving the city's old restaurant grease a new career—one that should mean cleaner air, cleaner sewers and Muni buses that smell like fried zucchini one day and fried chicken the next.

  • Toxic Toys?
    Just in time for the holidays, we’re hosting free testing of toys for lead, cadmium, and other toxic chemicals. Come to the EcoCenter at 11 Grove Street on December 11 or 13, 10am – 12pm. Please RSVP to Jean Walsh at jean.walsh@sfgov.org or call 415-355-3755

  • Turf’s up!
    The living roof at the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park is planted with an array of native groundcover and wildflowers.  The museum won’t open ‘til next year, but the spectacular roof is already an attraction.

Green Christmas
 Dreaming of a Green Xmas: street trees make excellent Christmas trees…and live on as gifts to the community.



Meetings & Events

Saturday, December 8
10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Managing Garden Soil Organically

Saturday, December 15
10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Greywater Design for Home and Garden


More info on these meetings and events



The Orchard Hotel

 

Orchard Hotel & Orchard Garden Hotel

The Orchard Hotels’ developer and owner Mrs. S.C. Huang, pursued ‘green’ hotels for several important reasons. Studies have shown that green businesses have lower operating costs, higher employee productivity, and happier, healthier occupants. Both the Orchard Hotel and its sister property, the Orchard Garden Hotel will elevate the guest experience while leaving a much smaller footprint on our environment.

The Orchard Garden Hotel has been awarded LEED® (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). San Francisco’s first hotel to earn this honor, the Orchard Garden is only the third hotel in the U.S. and fourth hotel in the world with this certification. LEED is the USGBC’s leading edge system for designing and constructing the world’s greenest, energy-efficient, high performing buildings. Actions/Accomplishments that make the Orchard Hotel and the Orchard Garden Hotel green:
  • We use natural citrus-based cleaning products
  • We offer organic and natural bath amenities
  • Our rooms have low flow shower heads, toilets, and CFLs
  • We offer a 'towel use' program
  • Our collateral/paper (including toilet paper) is 100% recycled
  • We use soy-based inks
  • A 100% tobacco-free environment
  • At the Orchard Garden Hotel, all guest rooms have in-room recycling bins so that paper, plastic and aluminum left behind by guests is recycled
  • All fabrics at the Orchard Garden Hotel are made with recycled polyester and other textiles without chemicals and are machine-washed to avoid the chemicals that come with dry cleaning
  • The Orchard Garden Hotel debuted the city’s first guestroom key card energy control system
  • Eco-friendly construction materials for the Orchard Garden Hotel include concrete made with fly ash, a byproduct of recycling coal, and wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as harvested in a sustainable manner







For more information please visit sfenvironment.org or call (415) 355-3700.
SF Environment: Our home. Our city. Our planet.
SF Environment is the Department of the Environment for the City and County of San Francisco.