Governor Schwarzenegger recently announced that the Ferry Building of San Francisco has won the 2008 Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award (GEELA) for its Green Initiatives.
Published: January, 2009
The State of California’s highest and most prestigious environmental honor, GEELA recognizes individuals, organizations and businesses that have demonstrated exceptional leadership for voluntary achievements in conserving California’s resources, protecting and enhancing the environment and building public-private partnerships.
This honor recognizes Equity Office’s dedication to improving the overall environmental performance of the Ferry Building, said Harout Hagopian, Regional Director of Operations for Equity Office, the building management company that leases the Ferry Building from the Port of San Francisco. After the building’s re-opening in 2003, we were committed to enhancing conventional commercial real estate operations to become more sustainable and compatible with the Ferry Building Marketplace’s organic and local food reputation. Today the Ferry Building remains dedicated to the best sustainable green business practices.
The Ferry Building is a San Francisco historic icon that first opened in 1898. Impeccably restored in 2003, it is now a mixed-use building with two floors of office space as well as a bustling food marketplace and transportation hub on the ground floor. The Ferry Building provides unique opportunities for the management team to explore the business case for sustainable development and practices as part of its building operations. Examples include: use of an industrial-size compost dumpster for retail food scraps; annual green office and restaurant supply open houses; recycling tips and recognition in the office tenant email newsletter; switching from bottled water to filtered tap water for meetings; trash audits reported to individual tenants and at group meetings; and education about taking public transportation to and from the Ferry Building.
Award recipients are chosen in eight different categories based on their strength in eight specific areas including results, transferability, environmental impact, resource conservation, economic progress, innovation and uniqueness, pollution prevention, and environmental justice. The Ferry Building won its award for Sustainable Practices, and was one of only 21 other GEELA recipients that were honored this year.
The Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Awards program was established in 1993, and is administered by the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Resources Agency in collaboration with the State and Consumer Services Agency, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. For more information on GEELA and this year’s award recipients, visit the Cal/EPA Web site: http://www.calepa.ca.gov/Awards/GEELA/
