Who we are

San Francisco Department of Environment: Green Purchasing Team, Outreach Team, Interns

Our Partners: San Francisco Office of Contract Administration, EarthSite, GoodGuide, City of San Francisco Staff

San Francisco Department of Environment (SF Environment)

Innovative programs that promote zero waste, clean air, energy efficiency, environmental justice, toxics reduction, renewable energy, eco-friendly transportation, and the urban forest.

Green Purchasing Team

Chris Geiger manages the Green Purchasing and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs for the City and County of San Francisco, California. The Green Purchasing or "SF Approved" Program develops environmentally friendly specifications for a wide variety of products purchased by City departments. Chris coordinates program activities, manages consultant contracts, and conducts technical reviews. The San Francisco IPM Program has reduced the City's pesticide use by about 80% since its inception, received the National IPM Achievement Award in 2006, and has been widely emulated nationwide.  He also serves as a member of the US Green Building Council's Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Group, sits on the Steering Committee for the national Responsible Purchasing Network, and is on the Board of Directors for the Bay Friendly Landscaping Coalition, which seeks to promote the Bay Friendly Landscape guidelines and certifications throughout the region.

Jessian Choy spends weekends finding toxic products to ban from her house.  She understands everyone isn’t as obsessive-compulsive. Yet.She has experimented with behavior change for organizations since 1999.  At SF Dept. of Environment, she led the creation of SFApproved.org to make it easier for you to buy green.  She uses fun scavenger hunts to engage City staff with draconian laws to buy less or buy green.  She creates online surveys that instantly show staff their Buy Green Score so they're motivated to be greener before they submit it.  She also works on green contracts the City has with vendors.  See her Fun and Draconian Tips to "Make" People Happy, Healthy or Green: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, FunAndDraconian.com.

Julie Bryant is the City Government Zero Waste Coordinator. For over 9 years, she has worked on recycling, composting, waste reduction and green purchasing issues in California and internationally. In her current job, when she is not coordinating waste diversion initiatives for SF city agencies, she is increasing the purchase of products with recycled content or eliminating unnecessary purchases or packaging by researching and developing contract specifications, collecting purchasing records and teaching purchasers about requirements. In her free time, she enjoys long distance bicycle touring, yoga, skiing and scrabble.

Outreach Team

This site would not be possible without web, design, usability and marketing expertise from Jesse Woltjer, Zoey Kroll, Mark Nicholas, Lawrence Grodeska, Thea Hillman, Jean Walsh, and Mark Westlund.

Interns

Many thanks to our interns for spending countless hours adding images for hundreds of products, and so much more.  Thank you, Hannah Safford, Jessica Marshall, Lisarose Malepeai!

Our Partners

• San Francisco Office of Contract Administration (also known as the City Purchaser) works closely with SF Environment to incorporate environmental specifications into citywide contracts.
• EarthSite was extremely generous when designing this website.  We are grateful for their high level of competence and excellent communications.
• GoodGuide is a "for-benefit" corporation that stitched together every imaginable database on environmental and health impacts of products, and corporate social responsibility.  They generously shared chemical hazards data of over 60,000 chemicals to make it easier for us to screen products.
• City and County of San Francisco Staff and Green Teams test green products and give feedback.  These City end users have been invaluable in making sure SF Approved products work well.