Green Festivals - San Francisco Hosts 7th Annual Green Festival

San Francisco Hosts 7th Annual Green Festival

Contact: Katie Hunsberger/Courtney Greenwald
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The Nation’s Longest - Running Green Living Event Makes Anticipated Return to the Bay Area
San Francisco Hosts 7th Annual Green Festival
Friday Night Kick-Off Party to Feature Hip-Hop Pioneer Chuck D and Community Activists
Reverend Lennox Yearwood and Drew Dellinger
November 14, 15 & 16, 2008

San Francisco, CA (November 2008) - Green Festival, the nation’s largest green consumer living event will make its seventh trip to San Francisco this year on November 14, 15, & 16, 2008 at the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center and the Giftcenter Pavilion Theater. The festival will highlight economic and environmental sustainability issues that have been so relevant in headlines and town halls across the nation. While the country finds itself at a pivotal point in terms of solving significant environmental concerns, the Green Festival program will help navigate this unusually uncertain time by offering ideas for attainable change.

A joint project of Global Exchange and Co-op America, two leading nonprofit organizations dedicated to environmental and social justice for more than twenty-five years, Green Festival is a forum to explore and build sustainable solutions for communities and the environment. The San Francisco Green Festival will host 150 visionary speakers, 400 local and national green businesses, and dozens of community and nonprofit groups. All exhibitors must meet strict standards set by Co-op America, guaranteeing the highest level of social and environmental responsibility in everything that enters the convention center.

While the climate crisis and energy issues loom in an increasingly unstable economy, Americans are eager for a sustainable marketplace that will provide jobs, clean energy and a secure future. These issues will be highlighted and covered in San Francisco as the demands and needs for environmental solutions have never been greater. As the show returns to its birthplace, Green Festival embraces the challenges sustainable living presents during the economic downturn and offers tangible solutions along with the most cutting edge insight into all areas of green living.

Kicking off the 2008 San Francisco Green Festival on Friday, November 14th at the Giftcenter Atrium is the Word to the Mother (Earth) event. Prominent social justice veterans and hip-hop pioneers like Chuck D, legendary leader of Public Enemy, Mutabaruka, Jamaica’s revolutionary dub poet, Drew Dillinger, a spoken word poet, professor, activist, and founder of Poets for Global justice will present an evening of spoken word poetry, hip-hop, and green consciousness. Unlike any previous opening event in Green Festival history, Word to the Mother (Earth) will reinforce the festival’s presence in the Bay Area with the help of some of the best known spoken word poets and hip-hop personalities.

For three days, Green Festival attendees will explore the latest in clean technology, green building, socially responsible investing, eco-fashion, renewable energy, green careers/green collar jobs, natural foods, groundbreaking films, eco-tourism and the perfect place to pick up economical, meaningful holiday gifts. In addition to the wide array of lively presentations and discussion topics, the crowd pleasing favorites are joined this year by prominent advocates of change. For the first time at the Green Festival, Dr. Cornel West, best-selling author of Race Matters and Democracy Matters, will mark the launch of his latest book, Hope on a Tightrope, with an exciting talk and book signing. Bay Area green-economy expert and advocate Van Jones will speak in his hometown about how “Green Collar Jobs” can save the polar bears while solving the United States financial crisis. Realizing the potential of the next generation of influencers and activists, Green Festival will offer a new Green Teen Pavilion, an exclusive area for teens to immerse themselves in interactive events such as solar car racing and personalized cosmetic creation.

The wide selection of workshops, speakers and panelists will cover topics both local and international in scope, ranging from TED speaker and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s “How to Get Your Brain to do What You Want it to do” to “Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times” with award winning journalist, and host of Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman. Regardless of your shade of green, Green Festival has something for everyone.

“For the past five years we have expanded and improved Green Festival to bring people the latest strategies and solutions for incorporating the environment into their lives and business,” says Global Exchange’s Cofounder, Kevin Danaher. “Now that the environment is intricately tied into the discourse surrounding the economy, Green Festival is striving to meet the needs of families, individuals, and business by providing solutions that are not only environmentally conservative but also fiscally innovative.”

Since the first event in 2002, Green Festival has created a model of environmental and social leadership, consistently providing authentic information for consumers on every aspect of green living. A stringent screening process ensures all exhibitors and sponsors meet the best practices and highest standards for environmental integrity and social responsibility. While many events and tradeshows are notoriously wasteful, Green Festival demonstrates an unmatched commitment to reducing environmental impact by walking its green talk and reusing, recycling, or composting 97 percent or more of show waste. Green Festival was referenced as a model for “how it should be done” by USA Today for the festival’s commitment to producing a reduced carbon footprint experience. To further lower the impact of the event on the environment, those who arrive by bicycle are offered reduced admission along with valet bike parking. Green Festival also provides carbon offsets for the entire event and its participating staff and organizers.

Green Festivals take place in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, DC, Seattle, and Denver and saw over 170,000 guests in combined attendance in 2007.

San Francisco Green Festival Highlights

Nationally renowned speakers such as Riane Eisler, eminent social scientist, attorney, and social activist; Winona LaDuke, internationally respected Native American and environmental activist; Greg Palast, New York Times-bestselling author and journalist; John Perkins, founder and board member of Dream Change and the Pachamama Alliance; Daniel Pinchbeck, writer and founder of literary journal Open City; and many more.
Better World Bookstore
Fair Trade Pavilion
Green Careers and Education Area
Green Teen Center & Organic Valley Green Kids Zone
Socially Responsible Investing
The Fair Trade Café
Organic Beer & Wine Garden
Eco-tourism and Eco-fashion
Green Film Festival
Community Action Center
Green Home Pavilion featuring hands-on workshops
Bike Valet
Live Music
Yoga and Movement Room

Event Details:
San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th Street (at Brannan St.) and the Giftcenter Pavilion Theater, 888 Brannan Street, November 14, 15, & 16, 2008.

Word to the Mother (Earth) Opening Event
Friday, November 14, 2008
6:30PM
Giftcenter Atrium

Friday 12PM to 7PM
Saturday 10AM - 7PM
Sunday 11AM - 6PM
$25 per person – all-access for all three days.
$15 per person – all access for one day

Discounted Admissions for: students with ID, seniors over 62, bike riders with a ticket from the Green Festival Bike Valet, bus riders with transfer ticket/bus pass, union members
$15 per person – all access for three days
$10 per person – all access for one day

FREE: Children 18 and under, Co-op America or Global Exchange members

Green Festival Partners:
Better World Books, Clif Bar, Greener Printer, Honest Tea, Microplace, bgreen, Organic Valley Kids Zone, Pangea Organics, Rainbow Grocery, Saybrook Graduate School, TS Designs, KPIX, CBS/CW, GOOD Magazine

For more information on San Francisco or any other Green Festival event visit: www.greenfestivals.org

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About Co-op America:
Co-op America (www.coopamerica.org) is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1982, providing the economic strategies, organizing power and practicing tools for businesses and individuals to address today's social and environmental problems. Its Green Business Network is the largest national network of businesses screened for their social and environmental responsibility.

About Global Exchange:
Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) is a membership-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world. Since its founding in 1988, Global Exchange has successfully increased public awareness of root causes of injustice while building international partnerships and mobilizing for change.