SUSTAINABILITY AT THE SF MARKET
Sustainability is one of our core values. We aim to support the grower community and make as little environmental impact as possible. As a key link between rural and urban food environments, we strive to leverage our unique position in the food system to scale sustainable impact. This includes critically examining our infrastructure and operations to identify opportunities to reduce environmental and societal effects, aligning with City and State goals around Zero Waste and Climate Action.
WASTE MANAGEMENT & RECYCLING
In 1996, the City and County of San Francisco invited The SF Market to serve as a pilot site for their now widely successful municipal green waste recycling program. Today, our Food Recovery Program furthers green waste reduction by connecting edible surplus produce to community partners working to address food security. Additionally, we collect hard-to-recycle materials like plastic shrink wrap from merchants to improve the efficiency of waste management solutions that wouldn’t be feasible on the scale of individual businesses.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
In 2015, we opened the Bay Area’s first 100% food-focused LEED Gold Certified building. A Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council is achieved by scoring highly across various key environmental parameters, including Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy & Atmosphere, Material & Resources, and Indoor Environmental Quality. This is not easy to accomplish in an industry with a lot of refrigeration and constant dock traffic. We continue to drive toward maximizing the energy efficiency of our buildings by assessing the potential for more efficient walk-in coolers and lighting, low-polluting refrigerants, and clean energy sources to power our buildings.
TRUCKING EMISSIONS
Transportation logistics are a critical aspect of the wholesale produce industry, as minimizing food miles and supply chain disruptions play a key role in connecting farms to markets in a sustainable and efficient manner. We closely monitor new and emerging regulations driving merchant fleet electrification, such as California Air Resources Board’s Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation, to ensure our long-term strategy for the Market remains nimble and responsive to emerging trends This forward-thinking approach helps our merchants remain in regulatory compliance, carve a path to a cleaner environment, and adapt our infrastructure to an evolving transportation sector.
