Green Festival

Festival features organic food and wine, green vendors, award-winning speakers and an appearance by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

By Jessica A. Knoblauch

The 8th annual Green Festival, held this year in San Francisco on November 13th, 14th and 15th, turned out an impressive 125 speakers and 350 exhibitors that highlighted eco-friendly ideas and products meant to create safe, healthy communities and strong local environments.

One of the more unique aspects of the festival was the HIA Hemp Pavilion, which featured member companies showcasing the many uses of industrial hemp in the market place, from hemp clothing and personal body care to hemp foods, oil and paper. The pavilion also hosted a hemp fashion show produced by one of the industry’s premiere designers and manufacturers, Summer Star Haeske from Envirotextiles.

On Saturday, San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom even made an appearance to the event. On the main stage, Gavin gave a speech highlighting San Francisco’s efforts to go green, which includes having the most aggressive local climate action plan in the U.S. He also voiced his support for green jobs, plug-in electric hybrid cars and city-wide composting efforts.

“It’s incumbent upon us to make real some of the rhetoric…to take these ideas and manifest them. It’s no longer good enough to talk about the way the world should be. We have to demonstrate the capacity to make it so,” said Newsom.