A quick look at San Francisco's sustainability practices through pictures, descriptions and solutions.

1. San Francisco

2. Do you think the lifestyle of the inhabitants of
your town or city reflects behavior that is in line
with the concept of sustainable development?
In your opinion, what should be improved?

3. Do San Franciscans Think Green?
San Francisco is often considered the progressive hub of America and
its green culture is reflected in its trash disposal practices, green
buses, public transport, green spaces and love of the environment.

4. San Francisco Quick Facts
• San Francisco has an ethnically diverse city of over
815,000 residents.
• 32% of San Francisco’s residents use public transportation
on a daily basis, but only 11% of Bay Area residents take
public transport to work.
• San Francisco has two main metro systems, The Bay Area
Rapid Transit (BART) and Muni.
• San Francisco has a strict planning department that
considers the needs of all its residents and considers
social, environmental, hazard and physical issues of
sustainability.

5. Who are the Stakeholders?
San Francisco has many factors to consider when
deciding to implement green policy. As a result all
parties involved must be considered.
Policy Makers
Inhabitants
Investors
Property
Owners
Environmental
Groups

6. Taxi Emissions
 S.F. has more hybrid taxis
than any other city in
America.
 Over 20% of taxis are
hybrid making S.F. “The
Greenest Taxi City in
America”.
 Since 2008, San Francisco
taxis are said to have
consumed 2.9 million
fewer gallons
annually, while spewing
35,000 fewer tons of
greenhouse gas per year.

7. Public Transportation Agencies
 The San Francisco Municipal
Transportation Agency
(SFMTA) has reached its goal
of reducing its fleet
greenhouse gas emissions to
thirty percent below 1990 and
becoming 100 percent
emission-free by 2020.
 Hybrid buses emit 95 percent
less particle matter (PM, or
soot) than the buses they
replace, the produce 40% less
oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and
they reduce greenhouse gases
by 30%

8. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit
 BART riders get the equivalent
of 249 miles per gallon.
 A typical BART ride is 13.45
miles.
 One commuter alone saves
over 5.868 gallons of CO2 a
year.
 BART has over 750 new
parking spaces for bikes.
 BART has an average of
360,000 weekday trips.
 BART has over 9 stops in San
Francisco and 41 stops around
the Bay Area.

9. The Reality
•San Franciscans are very in-tune
with the environment and most
residents want San Francisco to
be a model of sustainability for
other American cities.
•San Francisco elected officials
are handling most of the
resident’s needs by having
various boards and committees
that meet regularly and are
open to the public.
•San Franciscans pride
themselves on being informed
and involved. The Bay Area
ranks 7th most educated
population in the United States.

10. Buildings in San Francisco
 Home to many of the world's
leaders in the
design, construction, and
operation of sustainable
buildings, San Franciscans are
planning, building, and preserving
our built environment to balance
present needs, future
resources, and the history and
culture of our past.
 Buildings shape the urban
environment of San Francisco and
much of the community’s
environmental impact. San
Francisco is implementing a
groundbreaking, comprehensive
suite of policy initiatives and
incentive programs to improve the
performance of new and existing
buildings.

11. The Reality of Green Buildings in S.F.
 The majority of buildings in
S.F. are old and would require
an abundance of money and
resources to convert them into
green buildings. Rent in S.F. is
now the highest in the nation
and most tenants do not have
enough resources to convert
these dated buildings.
 The city of S.F. can do a better
job of promoting green growth
by implementing policy that
would incentivize building
owners.

13. San Francisco’s Water Resources
 San Francisco has some of the best drinking water in the United
States and gets almost all its drinking water from Hetch Hetchy
Reservoir in Yosemite National Park.
 San Francisco does not excessively waste its water; per capita
consumption is lower than the statewide average, but it still wastes
fresh water sources by not accessing its own underground water
resources. With climate change expected to create drought
conditions, and with the population expected to increase 6 million by
2035 the state's water resources will be hard-pressed to serve all the
needs; every city and county should be planning now to irrigate
landscapes with recycled water and treat sewage water—San
Francisco isn’t there yet.
 A possible solution is for policy makers to promotes usage of recycled
water and for San Franciscans to start using their own underground
water resources.

14. Our Biggest Challenges

15.  San Francisco must create change
with how it accesses its water.
Currently, San Franciscans waste
almost all their own water sources by
not accessing it. A possible solution
might be creating new policy that
would mandate use of San Francisco’s
own water sources.
 San Francisco struggles to maintain
the old with the new. It has a lot of
old buildings that residents cannot
afford to convert to greener buildings
because of high rent. This could be an
opportunity to incentivize building
repairs through tax deductions.
 In order to increase public transport
ridership, San Franciscans need more
bikes lanes and places to park their
bikes—they need more of an
incentive to take public transport to
work.

16. Are San Franciscans Capable of
Continuing to Make Change?
•Overall, San Francisco has done an amazing job of
implementing changes since 1990 to lower carbon
emissions.
•San Francisco has a lot of oversight in how it runs it
operations which creates transparency.
•Having been honored as the greenest city in the US and
Canada Green City Index and the Cleantech Capital of North
America, San Francisco has a challenge to continue to lead
the way on sustainability and innovation. My suggestions
are one way to take sustainability to the next level in San
Francisco.

17. The End

18. Works Cited
15, January. "San Francisco's Water Ways." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles
Times, 15 Jan. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
BART. BART Green Factsheet. Oakland: BART, 2012.
Http://www.bart.gov/images/bluesky/GreenSheet.pdf. 1 Jan. 2012. Web.
Basurto, Angelo D. Pictures by Angelo Basurto. 2013. Photographs. San Francisco.
"Designing a Smarter, More Sustainable San Francisco." Sfenvironment.org.
N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
"Email a Friend." HybridCarscom San Francisco Is The Greenest Taxi City in
America Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013
"Green Building." Sfenvironment.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
"Hybrid Buses." Hybrid Buses. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
Kurtzleben, Danielle. "The 10 Most Educated U.S. Cities." US News. U.S.News &
World Report, 30 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
"SPUR's Agenda for Change in San Francisco." SPUR. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
"What Is Planning?" San Francisco Planning Department :. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr.
2013.