Created by voter mandate in 1996, the SF Department of Environment creates visionary policies and innovative programs to improve, enhance, and preserve San Francisco's urban and natural environment. It is leading the way toward a sustainable future by developing wide-ranging environmental programs, fostering groundbreaking legislation, working collaboratively with key partners, and educating the public on comprehensive sustainability practices.
SF Environment has been at the forefront of regional, state and national climate action, including ambitious efforts to decarbonize its transportation, building, and energy sectors. In 2017, San Francisco surpassed two significant climate goals ahead of schedule, proving that strong climate action can go hand-in-hand with a booming economy.
- It reduced community-wide GHG emissions by 36% from 1990 levels, while its population grew by 22% and the local economy by 110%.
- It exceeded its Sustainable Trips goal, which called for 50% of all trips to, from, and within San Francisco to be by transit, bicycling and walking (52%). Achieved two years early, this goal has been increased to 80%, and is consistent with San Francisco’s Transit First policy.
Some of the Department’s achievements include:
- Developed and implemented the first in the state Existing Commercial Buildings Energy Performance ordinance
- Developed and operates GreenFinanceSF with both residential and commercial PACE financing
- Markets the GoSolarSF incentive program with over 5000 installations
- Leading various city departments and community partners to work on microgrid planning to support resiliency using solar PV and energy storage
- Implements energy efficiency programs for small businesses, commercial and multi-unit buildings that have reduced total energy use by 45.6 MW, 259 M kilowatt-hours, and more than 1.8 M therms, resulting in total savings of over $40M annually and 82,900 metric tons in carbon reductions
SF Environment is a founding and active member of the Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN), which represents the nine Bay Area counties. In addition, it is a lead partner in the BayREN Integrated Commercial Retrofits (BRICR), a DOE-funded initiative to modify and enhance existing open source tools to perform large-scale building energy modeling analysis on small and medium commercial buildings to reduce the cost of energy efficiency targeting, design, and project development. SF Environment is also responsible for the City's zero emission vehicle policy and program development and has positioned the City as a leader around the world in Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) and infrastructure investment.
SF Environment has managed numerous state and federal grants that have enabled the City to excel in renewable energy, climate, energy efficiency and clean transportation solutions and established a regional network of partnerships that have allowed that success.
As a noted leader in the field of municipal sustainability, SF Environment is a member of myriad organizations for sharing information about the project to a broader audience:
- Green Cities California, twelve of California’s largest and most environmentally progressive local governments;
- the Local Government Sustainable Energy Coalition, an association of California cities, counties and public agencies that share information, resources, and advocate for a sustainable energy future;
- the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, a peer network representing 100 cities in the US and Canada; and
- the C40-Clinton Climate Initiative, a network of the world’s megacities committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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